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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



B u s i n ess 
Prose— Poems 




12 fflHTHEDH] a 



BUSINESS 
PROSE-POEMS 



By WALT MASON 



Wood Engraving by GUST A VUS BAUMAN 
Illustration by WILLIAM STEVENS 




111 

Copyright, ipif, by George Matthew Adams. 
Registered in Canada in accordance with the 
Copyright Law. Entered at Stationers' Hall, 
London. All rights reserved. 



" UNCLE WALT," containing 189 oj Walt 
Mason's most famous Prose-Poems, $1.25 net. 



" We need more of this kind of philosophy— better tosinga 
■>ubilate than a miserere.'''' 

—HON. CHAMP CLARK. 



"His Prose-Poems exercise your liver by making you 
laugh. His zvit burbles and gurgles like a Kansas creek 
where the bullheads gambol." 

—ELBERT HUBBARD. 



" Walt Mason has a distinct place in contemporary litera- 
ture. His creed is the wisdom of the people. He is doing a 
man's work in the world, making life brighter and more 
cheerful and more sensible in this vale of tears. Millions in 
money could do no more — if as much — as this man does at 
his day's work. 

— WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE. 



He is the greatest rhymster in the world. 

—"ED" HOWE. 



GEORGE MA TTHE W A DAMS, Publisher, 
Peoples Gas Building, Chicago. 



©CU300090 



n t e n 



Nero's Fiddle 17 

The Great Men 18 

Clothes and Men 19 

Ignorance 20 

Toothache 21 

Trifling Things 22 

He Who Forgets 23 

Only a Dream 24 

Battling Nelson 25 

The Best We Can 26 

The Cussing Habit 27 

Bill Collectors 28 

The Substitutes 29 

Letting It Alone 30 

The Penny Saved 31 

The Welcome Man 32 

The Foolish Hen 34 

The Clock 35 

Time is Busy 36 

The Workers 37 

Politeness 38 

The Dog Story 39 

Knowledge by Mail 40 

John 41 

Saw Wood 42 

An Easy Job 43 

The Foolish Husband 44 

Ambition 45 

The Tired Man's Sleep 46 

Advice on Going 47 

To-Morrow 48 

The Statistician 49 

Hours and Ponies 50 

Speed Maniacs 51 

Help Wanted 52 

The Smiling Man 53 

Various Merchants 54 

The Schoolmaster 55 

The Burden of Wealth 56 

The Reliable Man 57 

Get Busy 58 

The Two Merchants 59 

Knowing Your Trade 60 

The Dark Days t>l 

The Salesman oZ 

Shining Promises 63 

The Sturdy Yeoman 64 



n t e n 



The Just-as-Goods 65 

Excelsior 66 

The Untidy Store 67 

Signatures 68 

The Honest Grocer 69 

The Preacher's Snap 70 

Thomas Edison 71 

Forget It 72 

The Unemployed 73 

My Wheelbarrow V4 

Early Birds 75 

An Epitaph 76 

Business and Sentiment 77 

The Usual Luck 78 

Salting Them Down 79 

The Law-Books 80 

The Human Head 81 

The Real Terror 82 

The Era of Progress 83 

Pegging Away 84 

The Coin Chaser 85 

Lady Nicotine 86 

The Auctioneer's Cry 87 

Brass Tacks 88 

The Time Killer 59 

The Idle Hen 90 

Admirable Crichton 91 

The Man Who Waits 92 

Sir Walter Raleigh 93 

Willie & Johnnie 94 

A Bale of Hay 95 

Dreams and Grub 96 

Mary's Lamb 97 

Toiler and Dreamer 98 

Whiskers 99 

The Dipper 100 

The Jealous 101 

Salted Samoleons 102 

It Might Be Worse 103 

The Agents 104 

Trouble Either Way 105 

The Commercial Basis 106 

Once in a While 107 

Plutocrat and Poet 108 

Saturday Night 109 

Wanderlust 110 

The Tightwad Ill 

The Important Man 112 



n t e n 



The Showy Horse 113 

Pretty Good Schemes 114 

A Rise in Value 115 

Dry Weather 116 

Killing Time 117 

The Discontented 118 

The Breadwinner 119 

Evenings at Home 120 

The Simple Life 121 

Retrospection 122 

Contentment 123 

Weary Old Age 124 

Man'b Errands 125 

Soliloquy of Croesus 126 

Conscience 127 

Richard Roe 128 

The Age of Invention 129 

In the Garden 130 

The Secret of Health 131 

Ben Davis Apples 132 

Good Advice 133 

As to Failure 134 

Back to the Farm 135 

The Rule of Life 136 

The Days of Youth. 137 

The Sphere of Genius 138 

The Dissatisfied Clerk 139 

The Two Parents 140 

Discouraging 141 

Behind the Counter 142 

The Moneyless Man 143 

The Great Remedy 144 

Before and After 145 

The Workers 146 

The Wise Old Man 147 

The Healer 148 

Job's Patience 149 

Money and Lives 150 

Lady Police 151 

Mortal Plans 152 

The Two Toilers 153 

In the Boneyard 154 

A Few Don'ts 155 

"Grimes' Goldens" 156 

The Bullied Witness 157 

Worth a Million 158 

Harvest Home 159 

The Tired Optimist 160 



n t e n 



Success 161 

Getting a Habit 162 

The Harvest 163 

Saturday Night 164 

Croesus 165 

Pipe Dreams 166 

The Hardluck Man 167 

Selfishness 168 

The Grouch 169 

Dreary Old Age 170 

Brooding 1/1 

The Misanthrope 1/2 

The Store Talksmith 173 

The Eminent Divine 174 

In the Kitchen 175 

Weariness 176 

Worth While 177 

Coronation 178 

National Anthems 179 

The True Reward 180 

The Rash Lover 181 

Nat Goodwin 182 

Hunting Grief 183 

Foolish Anger 184 

Spare the Flies 185 

The Healer 186 

The Suffragists 187 

What is Beer 188 



The High Priest of Horse Sense 



AN eminent dramatist said quite recently 
that success in play-writing is the 
visualizing of something that is already in the 
mind of the public. 

In other words, people like to be told 
what they already know. 

Hence the enduring popularity of Walt 
Mason. 

He says for thousands of people, in plain 
bed-rock vernacular, the very things they 
have been wanting to say, consequently every 
reader, when he concludes one of these 
poems, in which the music is concealed as 
artfully as in the new style of talking-machine, 
says with a sigh of satisfaction, "That's the 
gospel truth and well put, and I was about to 
say the same thing when he interrupted me." 



The High Priest of Horse Sense 



Walt Mason is the high priest of horse 
sense and also he is a literary workman. 
The combination is unusual and therefore 
his output is essentially different. It is what 
we call high-grade stuff. 



^^e^c o4^_^ 



HAZELDEN FARM 
BROOK, INDIANA 



To 

William Allen White. 



This little bale of business rhymes 

And knocks and boosts and kindred crimes 

Is handed, as a token 
Of gratitude; he helped me stick 
On Pegasus through thin and thick, 
And watched the critter buck and kick 

Until I had it broken. 



Obwajn 



ct&o^x^ 




' There he sat and played 'Bedeha? 
heedless of the fiery storm." 



Business Prose-Poems 

Nero's Fiddle. 



WE have often roasted Nero that 
he played the violin, while his 
native Rome was burning and 
the firemen raised a din; there 
he sat and played "Bedelia," heedless of 
the fiery storm, while the fire chief pranced 
and sweated in his neat red uniform. And 
I often think that Nero had a pretty level 
head ; would the fire have been extinguished 
had he fussed around instead? Would the 
fire insurance folks have loosened up a 
shekel more, had old Nero squirted water 
on some grocer's cellar door? When there 
comes a big disaster, people straightway 
lose their wits ; they go round with hands 
a-wringing, sweating blood and throwing 
fits ; but the wise man sits and fiddles, plays 
a tune from end to end, for it never pays 
to worry over things you cannot mend. It 
is good to offer battle when catastrophes 
advance, it is well to keep on scrapping 
while a fellow has a chance ; but when fail- 
ure is as certain as the coming of the dusk, 
then it's wise to take your fiddle and fall 
back on "Money Musk." 



17 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Great Men 



LIVES of great men all remind us 
that it pays to advertise ; every day 
of life should find us making all 
the people wise, to our coming and 
our going — nothing comes to him who's 
coy; all our wares we should be showing, 
if the limelight we'd enjoy. Let us seek 
the bland reporters if they do not hunt for 
us; seek them in their dismal quarters, in 
their inky, pasty muss; giving them our 
warm opinions of all things beneath the 
sky; over all the earth's dominions let 
imagination fly. Famous men? The 
crowds adore 'em! Lions thrive in every 
land! Let us keep our names before 'em, 
and they'll cheer to beat the band! Let 
our pictures oft be printed, lest the people 
should forget, even though the section 
tinted is the only place we get. Better have 
our faces beaming on the pink or yellow 
page, than to have the people dreaming 
that we are no more the rage. Advertis- 
ing! Let the grocer pay for space to bill 
his name; shall we do it? Not for Joe, 
sir! That is not the Great Men's game; 
we are onto smoother capers than the mer- 
chants often see ; we have learned to work 
the papers, and to get our booming free. 



18 



Business Prose-Poems 



Clothes and Men. 



I BLEW into a clothing store, to buy a 
sock, and nothing more. There 
stood a dummy in the aisle ; a wood- 
en thing with graven smile, all 
dressed up in a suit of clothes, and glasses 
perched upon its nose. A clerk came up 
to wait on me; as fresh a youth as you 
might see. I said: "I want to buy a sock, 
if you have such a thing in stock. " " We 
surely have," he said: "I s'pose you do 
not want a suit of clothes?" "I said a 
sock — no other junk." "I'd like to sell 
you yonder trunk; it's made of zinc, with 

leather streaked " "I want a sock!" 

I fairly shrieked; "dad bust it, sir, you 
let me be — I'll have that dummy wait on 
me! Though modeled on an awkward 
plan, I venture he's a gentleman. He 
will not try to sell a clock to one who's 
asking for a sock; he won't insult me to 
my nose by hinting that I'm needing 
clothes. He will not offer me a trunk, or 
any other ding-donged junk, when all I 
want beneath this roof is just a bolster for 
my hoof. The boss of these dodgasted 
works should let the dummies act as clerks, 
and stand the clerks along the aisles, ex- 
hibiting the latest styles!" 



19 



Business Prose-Poems 

Ignorance. 



IT was the steenth of August, the day- 
was close and warm; I stepped into 
a school house to watch the kids per- 
form; and I had sticks of candy and 
other treasures rare, to hand out to the 
children whose showing was most fair. 
The teacher asked them questions as sim- 
ple as could be: "What town in Asia 
Minor is on the Irish Sea?" "A farmer 
has three horses; of one he is bereft; two 
others are impounded — how many has he 
left?" "If forty thousand tigers, in just 
a half a day, will drink ten tons of water 
and eat ten stacks of hay, how many one- 
eyed soldiers would build five miles of 
fence, when eggs and rotten apples are 
sold at fifteen cents?" The children, 
bright and eager, gave answers every time, 
their energy and brightness, I thought, 
were most sublime. But there was one ex- 
ception, a youth with forehead low, who 
merely scowled and mumbled his answer: 
"I don't know." His presence cast a 
shadow upon the cheerful scene; his an- 
swers shamed the teacher, and made the 
school seem mean; and then I sprung the 
candy — a chunk for every one, except the 
ignoramus — of course that youth got none. 
And seldom does the candy in this world's 
battle go to any weary bonehead who an- 
swers "I don't know." 

20 



Business Prose-Poems 

Toothache. 



NOW my weary heart is breaking, 
for my left hand tooth is aching, 
with a harsh, persistent rumble 
that is keeping folks awake ; hol- 
lowed out by long erosion, it, with spasm 
and explosion, seems resolved to show the 
public how a dog-gone tooth can ache. Now 
it's quivering or quaking; now it's doing 
fancy aching, then it shoots some Roman 
candles which go whizzing through my 
brain; now it does some lofty tumbling, 
then again it's merely grumbling; and 
anon it's showing samples of spring nov- 
elties in pain. All the time my woe in- 
creases; I have kicked a chair to pieces, 
but it didn't seem to soothe me or to bring 
my soul relief; I have stormed around the 
shanty till my wife and maiden auntie said 
they'd pull their freight and leave me full 
enjoyment of my grief. I have made my- 
self so pleasant that I'm quarantined at 
present, and the neighbors say they'll 
shoot me if I venture from my door; now 
a voice cries: "If thou'd wentest in the 
first place, to a dentist — " it is strange 
that inspiration never came to me before ! 



21 



Business Prose-Poems 



Trifling Things 



THE Wise Man, with some boys in 
tow, beheld a pin upon the ground. 
1 ' My lads, ' ' he said, his face aglow, 
"come here and see what I have 
found! "lis but a pin, a humble pin, on 
which the passing thousands tread, and 
some unthinking men would grin, to see 
me lift it from its bed. And yet, my lads, 
the trifles count; the drops of water make 
the sea; the grains of sand compose the 
mount, and moments make eternity. Each 
hour to man its chances brings, but he will 
gain no goodly store, if he despises little 
things, nor sees the pin upon his floor. I 
stoop and grasp this little pin; I'll keep it, 
maybe, seven years ; it yet may let the sun- 
shine in, and brighten up a day of tears." 
The Wise Man bent to reach the pin, and 
lost his balance, with a yell; he hit the 
pavement with his chin; his hat into the 
gutter fell; he rolled into a crate of eggs, 
and filled the air with dismal moans, and 
then a dray ran o'er his legs, and broke 
about a gross of bones. They took him 
home upon a door, and there he moans — so 
tough he feels: "Those dad-blamed chil- 
dren never more will listen to my helpful 
spiels ! ' ' 



22 



Business Prose -Poems 



He Who Forgets 



THE merchant said, in caustic tones : 
" James Henry Charles Augustus 
Jones, please get your pay and 
leave the store; I will not need 
you any more. Important chores you 
seem to shun; you're always leav- 
ing work undone ; and when I ask the 
reason why, you heave a sad and 
soulful sigh, and idly scratch your dome of 
thought, and feebly say: 'Oh, I forgot!' 
James Henry Charles Augustus Jones, this 
world's a poor resort for drones, for men 
with heads so badly set that their long suit 
is to forget. No man will ever write his 
name upon the shining wall of fame, or 
soar aloft on glowing wings because he 
can't remember things. I've noticed that 
such chaps as you remember when your 
pay is due ; and when the noontime whistles 
throb, your memory is on the job ; and when 
a holiday's at hand, your recollection isn't 
canned. The failures on life's busy way, 
the paupers, friendless, wan and gray, 
throughout their bootless days, like you, 
forgot the things they ought to do. So take 
your coat, and draw your bones, James 
Henry Charles Augustus Jones!" 



23 



Business Prose -Poems 



Only a Dream. 



I WENT to roost without a dime, and 
there I lay for hours and dreamed 
that I was John D. Morganheim, and 
wealth into my coffers streamed. I 
watched my speedy minions flee to dump 
the bullion in the banks, and sleuths for- 
ever walked with me, protecting me from 
wicked cranks. The world sent forth its 
host of bores, and mendicants in serried 
squad filled all the landscape out of doors, 
and tried to touch me for my wad. And all 
the jealous plutocrats were there to get my 
coin away; they poked me sorely in the 
slats, and kept me humping, night and day. 
In solemn state I seemed to sup, and sleep- 
less tossed upon my bed ; and interviewers 
called me up and twisted everything I said. 
I had no pleasant hours to while away at 
games I loved before; I mounted guard 
upon my pile, and counted sacks of gold 
and swore. I had no friends; I had men's 
hate, and I suspected other men of low 
down schemes to swipe a crate of my long 
green, and then again. I had no comrades ; 
uncles, aunts, and all my kindred eyed my 
till, and changed to cringing sycophants 
that they might figure in my will. And 0, 
the joy when from this dream to cheerful 
poverty I woke ! I uttered one long glad- 
some scream, and cried: " Thank heaven, 
I am broke!" 



24 



Business Prose-Poems 



Battling Nelson. 



IT jarred me up like everything, when 
Nelson met his last defeat. He left 
the sanctum for the ring, forsook the 
cloister's calm retreat to mingle 
swats with one Moran, a vulgar person, I 
am told; and now he has a damaged can, 
his heart is sick, his feet are cold. How 
often, friends, must I explain that men 
should not forsake their trade? It gives 
my heart a convex pain that my behests 
are not obeyed. When Battling Nelson 
for the press was writing gripping, vital 
tales, he was a stranger to distress, and 
happiness was his, in bales. The gems of 
thought dropped from his pen like dia- 
monds of a ray serene; he soothed and 
cheered the souls of men and earned full 
many a golden bean. That sturdy yeoman, 
Jeffries, came from rustic scenes and ver- 
nal tints, to elevate the fighting game, and 
went back home again in splints. And 
Uncle Joe, the Danville sport, passed up 
his baseball team this year to prance in 
congress and cavort, and there he got a 
wooden ear. Friends, Romans, sports and 
fellow guys! Just watch me, while in 
truth I wade: The gentleman who's truly 
wise, will stick like beeswax to his trade! 



25 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Best We Ccm 



SAID Abe (the nation's greatest man) : 
" I do the very best I can ; and if my 
course is erring quite, no argument 
can make it right, and if in righteous- 
ness I'm strong, no sophistry can make it 
wrong; so, be the critic foe or friend, I'll 
do my best until the end." The fact is 
galling to relate, but some of us cannot be 
great; our ways obscure we'll have to 
tread, and hustle for our daily bread; our 
pictures never may be seen in Who's Who 
book, or magazine ; but, if upon the Day of 
Doom, we come cavorting from the tomb, 
when sounds the final trumpet's notes, we 
won't be herded with the goats, if we can 
say (and make it good) : "We always did 
the best we could ! ' ' 



26 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Cussing Habit 



THE jackal is a beastly beast; and 
when it hankers for a feast, it has 
no use for nice fresh meat; the 
all-fired fool would rather eat 
some animal that died last year; and so 
the jackal, far and near, is shunned by self- 
respecting brutes, and slugged with rocks, 
and bricks, and boots. And men whose 
language is decayed, who make profanity 
a trade, are like the jackal of the wild, 
that hunts around for things defiled. In 
all your rounds you'll never find a healthy, 
clean and gentle mind possessed by any 
son of wrath whose language needs a 
Turkish bath. On great occasions there's 
excuse for turning ring-tailed cusswords 
loose; the Father of his Country swore at 
Monmouth, and then cussed some more; 
that patient soul, the Man of Uz, with boils 
so thick he couldn't buzz, ripped off some 
language rich and brown, until old Bildad 
called him down. Great men, beneath 
some awful stroke let loose remarks that 
fairly smoke, and we forgive them as we 
write the story of their deeds of might. 
But little men, who swear, and swear, and 
thus pollute our common air, are foul and 
foolish as the frogs that trumpet in their 
native bogs. 



27 



Business Prose- Poems 

Bill Collectors. 



IN olden times the bill collector was 
masculine and loud of tongue, and he 
would bullyrag and hector until our 
nerves were all unstrung. His impu- 
dence was often ghastly, and when we 
kicked him from our door, he worried us, 
and bored us vastly, the way he stood 
around and swore. Collection day was 
then a terror, and when it came we'd 
groan and sigh, and walk the floor, or tear 
our hair or go looking for a place to die. 
But times have changed; the world grows 
better! For now a maiden, fair and 
bright, comes down upon the smiling 
debtor, and he coughs up with great de- 
light! The girl collector doesn't bluster 
or threaten suits by lawyer folk; no man's 
so cheap that he'd disgust her by telling 
her that he is broke. So paying bills be- 
comes a pleasure; I like to see the girls 
come in; I hand them, in a bushel meas- 
ure, the good old scads that make them 
grin. woman — some old bard hath said 
it — she fills with happiness man's cup! I 
stand off clerks and strain my credit, just 
for the joy of paying up ! 



28 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Substitutes. 



I CALLED upon the grocer man, and 
asked him for a gallon can of syrup, 
and he cried: "Too bad! We've 
just sold out the last we had! But 
we have something just as good; this kero- 
sene of ours has stood the fiercest tests you 
ever saw; and scientists lay down the law 
that coal oil's in a class apart; it tones the 
liver and the heart ; it fills you full of rich, 
red blood, and makes your hair and whisk- 
ers bud. So throw your syrup jug away 
and buy some kerosene today." I smote 
that merchant with his scales, and soaked 
him with a keg of nails, and biffed him 
firmly with my lyre, and set his one-horse 
store afire. I called upon the druggist 
then, and wished to buy a fountain pen. "I 
do not keep such things," he said; "the 
trade in fountain pens is dead; they sel- 
dom serve you as they should — and I have 
something just as good. Now, I've a 
squirtgun here, my friend, that I can safe- 
ly recommend. The London Lancet right- 
ly claims there are no better, saner games 

than squirting water from a gun ." I 

reached across and poked him one. Is there 
a merchant in this land, to say: "Such 
goods are not on hand ; there is none in this 
neighborhood, and there is nothing just as 
good?" 



29 



Business Prose -Poems 



Letting It Alone 



HE used to take a flowing bowl per- 
haps three times a day; he need- 
ed it to brace his nerves, or drive 
the blues away, but as for chaps 
who drank too much, they simply 
made him tired; "a drink," he said, "when 
feeling tough, is much to be desired; some 
men will never quit the game while they 
can raise a bone, but I can drink the old 
red booze, or let the stuff alone. ' ' He tod- 
dled on the downward path, and seedy grew 
his clothes, and like a beacon in the night 
flamed forth his bulbous nose ; he lived on 
slaw and sweitzer cheese, the free lunch 
brand of fruits, and when he sought his 
downy couch he always wore his boots; 
"some day I'll cut it out," he said; "my 
will is still my own, and I can hit the old 
red booze, or let the stuff alone." One 
night a prison surgeon sat by this poor 
pilgrim's side, and told him that his time 
had come to cross the great divide. "I've 
known you since you were a lad," the stern 
physician said, "and I have watched you as 
you tried to paint the whole world red, and 
if you wish, I'll have engraved upon your 
churchyard stone: 'He, dying, proved that 
he could let the old red booze alone.' " 



30 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Penny Saved 



IT is wise to save the pennies when the 
pennies come your way, for you're 
more than apt to need them when ar- 
rives the rainy day ; and when Famine 
comes a-whooping with the cross-bones on 
her vest, then the fellow with the bundle 
has the edge on all the rest. I admire the 
man who's saving, if he doesn't save too 
hard, if he doesn't think a dollar bigger 
than the courthouse yard ; and I like to see 
him salting down the riches that he's 
struck, if he always has a quarter for the 
guy that's out of luck. When the winter 
comes upon us, yelling like a baseball fan, 
then it's nice to have some boodle in an 
old tomato can; when there's sickness in 
the wigwam, and we have to call the doc, 
then it's nice to have a package hidden in 
the eight-day clock; when Old Age, the 
hoary rascal, comes a-butting in at last, 
then it's nice to have some roubles that 
you cornered in the past ; and the man who 
saves the pennies is a dandy and a duck — 
if he always has a quarter for the guy 
that's out of luck. 



31 



Business Prose- Poems 



The Welcome Man 



THERE 'S a man in the world who is 
never turned down, wherever he 
chances to stray; he gets the glad 
hand in the populous town, or out 
where the farmers make hay; he's greeted 
with pleasure on deserts of sand, and deep 
in the aisles of the woods; wherever he 
goes there's the welcoming hand — he's The 
Man Who Delivers the Goods. The fail- 
ures of life sit around and complain; the 
gods haven't treated them white; they've 
lost their umbrellas whenever there's rain, 
and they haven't their lanterns at night; 
men tire of the failures who fill with their 
sighs the air of their own neighborhoods; 
there's one who is greeted with love-lighted 
eyes — he's The Man Who Delivers the 
Goods. One fellow is lazy, and watches the 
clock, and waits for the whistle to blow; 
and one has a hammer, with which he will 
knock, and one tells a story of woe; and 
one, if requested to travel a mile, will meas- 
ure the perches and roods; but one does 
his stunt with a whistle or smile — he 's The 
Man Who Delivers the Goods. One man is 
afraid that he '11 labor too hard — the world 
isn't yearning for such; and one man is 
always alert, on his guard, lest he put in a 



32 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Welcome Man 



minute too much ; and one has a grouch or 
a temper that's bad, and one is a creature 
of moods; so it's hey for the joyous and 
rollicking lad — for the One Who Delivers 
the Goods ! 



33 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Foolish Hen 



AN old black hen with yellow legs 
once "set" three months on wood- 
en eggs; for three long months 
she held them down, till all the 
other hens in town were cackling o'er the 
famous jest ; she wore the feathers off her 
breast, and saw her blooming youth de- 
part, and broke her fond and foolish heart, 
and shrunk till thinner than a match — and 
still the blamed eggs wouldn't hatch. Her 
owner said she was a fool, and ducked the 
poor thing in a pool, and then dismissed 
her from his dreams, and turned to nurse 
his little schemes. He got poor suckers to 
invest their cash in rainbows in the West; 
he sold a lot of polar ice; he cornered 
prunes and raised the price; he reached 
for dollars everywhere, and for the truth 
he had no care; and honesty possessed no 
charm ; and virtue was a false alarm. And 
now he 's wearing prison stripes ; and when 
the warden's whistle pipes, he plies his 
task with shackled legs; his schemes were 
much like wooden eggs. 0, dead game 
sports and other men, are you as foolish 
as that hen? 



3i 



Business Prose-Poems 

The Clock. 



I LIKED to watch the good old clock 
that hung upon the wall; I really 
think a man might walk from Cleve- 
land to St. Paul, and not behold a 
smoother piece of skillful craftsmanship; 
the wheels went round as slick as grease, 
and never made a slip. I dearly loved for 
hours to stand and watch the pendulum; 
and note the active minute hand, and hear 
the flywheel hum. I liked to hear the 
blamed thing strike — but on one fateful 
day, the boss remarked: "You'd better 
hike — you are not worth your hay. You're 
paid to help to sell my stock, and do some 
other chores, but all the day you watch the 
clock, so chase yourself out doors." And 
then he pushed me with his feet, and fanned 
me with a chair, and when I landed in the 
street my shoes were in the air. 0, clocks 
are fascinating things, and they have love- 
ly works, and pendulums and hands and 
springs, but they are bad for clerks, who 
yield to their seductive charm, and watch 
the hands go round, and listen to the loud 
alarm, and hear the striker pound. 



35 



Business Prose -Poems 



Time Is Busy 



HOW the sawed-ofT months are fly- 
ing, speeding, scorching on their 
way ! Soon the year will be a-dy- 
ing, that we greeted yesterday! 
Christmas choirs their hymns were sing- 
ing, but an hour or two ago, New Year's 
bells were gaily ringing, yesterday, across 
the snow, and the year is old already; 
gone his youthful graces all ; soon his gait 
will be unsteady, and he'll totter to his 
fall. Time is busy as a faker with his little 
game of chance; busy as an undertaker at 
an Arizona dance. Time will never stop a 
second for the things you have to say; all 
his dates ahead are reckoned, he is always 
baling hay. Let us, then, quit loafing, 
creeping ; let us work from sun to sun ; so 
that when it's time for sleeping, we may 
say: "The chores are done!" 



36 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Workers 



MEN have worked and ground 
away, for a hundred thousand 
years, cutting ice and baling hay 
in their anguish and their tears ; 
they have toiled and they have wrought 
since the universe was new, and this knowl- 
edge makes them hot — that the chores are 
not half through! Just as much to do to- 
day as ten thousand years ago — winding 
clocks or sifting whey, shearing hens or 
sawing snow! When the toilers now on 
earth toddle to their final sleep, other gents 
of sterling worth in their place must work 
and weep, doing all the useless chores that 
we foolish people do; chasing tomcats out 
of doors, teaching dogs to smoke and chew. 
We would gladly do the work till our 
stretch of work is done, if it were not for 
the shirk who is lounging in the sun ; when 
we see him as he stands in his fav'rite loaf- 
ing spot, with his idle head and hands, then 
it makes us pretty hot. Oh, our anger oft 
hath waxed o'er the work we have to do, 
o 'er the knowledge that we 're taxed to sup- 
port the loafing crew. 



37 



Business Prose- Poems 



Politeness 



IN my youth I knew an aleck who was 
most exceeding smart, and his flippant 
way of talking often broke the hear- 
er's heart, He was working for a 
grocer in a little corner store, taking down 
the wooden shutters, sweeping up the 
greasy floor, and he always answered 
pertly, and he had a sassy eye, and the 
people often asked him if he wouldn't 
kindly die. Oh, the festive years skedad- 
dled, and the children of that day, now are 
bent beneath life 's burdens, and their hair 
is turning gray; and the flippant one is 
toiling in the same old corner store, taking 
down the ancient shutters, sweeping up 
the greasy floor. In the same old sleepy 
village lived a springald so polite that to 
hear him answer questions was a genuine 
delight; he was working in a foundry 
where they dealt in eggs and cheese, and 
the work was hard and tiresome, but he 
always tried to please. And to-day he's 
boss of thousands, and his salary's sky 
high — and his manner's just as pleasant as 
it was in days gone by. It's an idle, tri- 
fling story, and you doubtless think it flat, 
but its moral might be pasted with some 
profit in your hat. 



38 



Business Prose -Poems 



A Dog Story 



A LARGE black dog, of stately mien, 
was walking o'er the village 
green, on some important errand 
bent ; a little cur, not worth a cent, 
observed him passing by, and growled, 
and barked a while, and yapped, and 
howled. The big one did not deign a look, 
but walked along, like prince or dook. The 
cur remarked, beneath its breath: "That 
big four-flusher's scared to death! Those 
great big brutes are never game; now just 
watch Fido climb his frame!" The big 
black dog went stalking on, as calm and 
tranquil as the dawn; he knew the cur was 
at his heels; he heard its yaps and snarls 
and squeals, and yet he never looked 
around, or blinked an eye, or made a 
sound; his meditations had a tone that 
mangy pups have never known. The cur, 
unnoticed, lost all fear ; it grabbed the big 
dog by the ear ; the latter paused just long 
enough to take the small one by the scruff, 
and shake him gently to and fro ; and then 
he let poor Fido go, and said, in quiet 
tones: "Now get!" And Fido's doubtless 
running yet. Suppose you see if you can 
nail the moral hidden in this tale. 



39 



Business Prose ■ Poems 



Knowledge By Mail 



WHEN I was young and fresh and 
ruddy, and full of snap and vim, 
my parents used to make me 
study until my head would swim. 
I sat upon the schoolhouse bleachers, with 
pencil, book and slate, while sundry bald 
and weary teachers drilled knowledge 
through my pate. For some quick method 
I was yearning, some easy path to tread; 
"there is no royal road to learning," the 
bald old teachers said; "stick closely to the 
printed pages, all idleness eschew, and then 
perhaps, in future ages, you'll know a 
thing or two." And when I left the school 
and college, to climb life's toilsome hill, I 
found my little store of knowledge would 
barely fill the bill. But nowadays the world 
moves quicker than in the long ago; old- 
fashioned methods make us snicker, they 
were so crude and slow. By sending seven 
wooden dollars to Messrs. Freaks and 
Freaks, they'll make our children finished 
scholars, and do it in three weeks. So let 
us close the schools and leave 'em to ruin 
and decay, and take the books and maps 
and heave 'em a million miles away; for 
now the kids take erudition in three-grain 
capsule form; the teacher loses the posi- 
tion that he so long kept warm. 



40 



Business Prose-Poems 



John. 



I HIRED a toiler whose name was 
John, to come with his weapons and 
mow my lawn, for long green 
whiskers were growing there; it 
badly needed some tender care. And John 
arrived at the break of day, and whittled 
grass in a cheerful way; the job was fierce, 
for the weeds had grown, and the dog 
had scattered some chunks of bone, but 
John, he labored to beat the band, and 
shaved that lawn with a master hand. He 
named his price when the work was o'er, 
and I gladly coughed up a quarter more. 
And whenever I find that my lawn is due 
for a good clean shave or a dry shampoo, 
I'll hunt up John, if he's still on earth, and 
pay him more than the job is worth. I'll 
hunt up John if I have to trot from the 
court house clear to the dumping spot, for 
he does his work as a workman should, and 
doesn't quit till he finds it good. The 
streets are haunted by shiftless men, who 
seek employment and seek again; they say 
that jobs are as hard to find as pearls of 
price in a melon rind ; their hopes are hazy, 
their chances gone — for most employers 
are hunting John ! 



41 



Business Prose- Poems 



Saw Wood! 



SOMETIMES the saw is dull and 
squeaks like thunder, the wood is 
crooked-grained and full of knots; 
sometimes the sawbuck creaks and 
falls from under, and trouble seems to come 
in wholesale lots. And t'other man, the 
gent across the alley, is sawing pine that 
cuts as slick as lard; he jollies you with 
merry quip and sally, which makes your 
stunt seem doubly, trebly hard. But keep 
at work — don't waste your time in jawing! 
Saw wood, saw wood, and never raise a 
whine! The other chap tomorrow may be 
sawing elm knots while you are carving 
Norway pine ! 



42 



Business Prose-Poems 



An Easy Job. 



IT isn't hard to win renown as having 
not a friend in town. Just have an 
ever ready sneer to spring when 
others' names you hear. And if you 
hear some fellow praised for deeds that 
left the village dazed, insist that he's a 
false alarm, and doing far less good than 
harm. If neighbors prosper more than 
you, just run them down, the long day 
through; insist that all their wealth was 
made by fooling with the board of trade. 
Say bitter things behind the backs of men 
who treat you smooth as wax. Distrust 
men's motives and insist that all hearts 
have a crooked twist, that all are cheats, 
and out for pelf — all men are frauds, ex- 
cept yourself. And always raise a noisy 
storm when people speak of a reform. 
Old ways are always best, you know, and 
any progress here below, is just the dream 
of foolish men, and grafters pining for the 
pen. Protest and kick, and sneer and 
growl, and wear a large relentless scowl, 
insist the world is on the bum — and folks 
will hate to see you come. 



43 



Business Prose-Poems 

The Foolish Husband. 



HE toiled and sweated half his life 
to hang rich garments on his 
wife. "I haven't time to cut a 
dash," he said, "but I will blow 
the cash to let those swelled-up neighbors 
know that I have got the cash to blow." 
And so his good wife wore her furs, and 
dress parade was always hers ; she had her 
gems from near and far, and glittered like 
an auto-car; she had a new and wondrous 
gown for every "function" in the town; 
her life seemed sunny, gay and glad, this 
wife who was her husband's ad. One night, 
his day of labor o'er he found her weeping 
at the door, and when he asked her to ex- 
plain, she stopped a while the briny rain, 
and cried: "This life my spirit fags! 
I'm tired of wearing flossy rags! I'm 
tired of chasing through the town, a dum- 
my in a costly gown! I'd rather wear a 
burlap sack, or leather flynet on my back — 
and have you with me as of yore — than all 
the sables in the store! And if you really 
love your wife, you'll get back to the sim- 
ple life. Don 't try to gather all the dough 
that's minted in this world below; just 
earn enough to pay the freight, and let us 
live in simple state, in some neat shanty 
far away from pomp and fuss and vain 
display — some hut among the cockleburs, 
remote from jewelry and furs!" 

44 



Business Prose-Poems 



Ambition 



WHEN I hear a noble singer reel- 
ing off entrancing noise, then I 
bend in admiration, and his 
music never cloys. And I feel 
a high ambition as a singer to excel, and 
I put my voice in training, and I prance 
around and yell; oh, I dish up trills and 
warbles, and I think, throughout the day, 
that I'll have Caruso faded ere a month 
has rolled away. Then the neighbors 
come and see me, and they give me stern 
reproof, saying I am worse than forty yel- 
low cats upon the roof. "When I see a 
splendid painting it appeals to brain and 
heart, and I blow myself for brushes and 
decide to follow Art. With a can of yel- 
low ochre and a jug of turpentine, I pro- 
duce some masterpieces that would make 
old Rubens pine, and I talk about Perspec- 
tive and the whatness of the whence, till 
a neighbor comes and asks me what I'll 
take to paint his fence. When I read a 
rattling volume I invest in pens and ink, 
and prepare to write some chapters that 
will make the nation think; and I rear 
some Vandyke whiskers and neglect to cut 
my hair, and I read up Bulwer Lytton for 
some good old oaths to swear; when I get 
the proper bearing, and the literary style, 
then I'm asked to write a pamphlet boom- 
ing some ones castor ile! 



45 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Tired Man's Sleep. 



NOW the long, long day is fading, 
and the hush of dusk is here, and 
the stars begin parading, each 
one in its distant sphere; and 
the city's strident voices dwindle to a gen- 
tle hum, and the heart of man rejoices that 
the hour of rest has come. Thrown away 
is labor's fetter, when the day has reached 
its close; nothing in the world is better 
than a weary man's repose. Nothing in 
the world is sweeter than the sleep the 
toiler finds, while the ravening moskeeter 
fusses at the window blinds. Nothing 
'neath the moon can wake him, short of 
cannon cracker's roar; if you'd rouse him 
you must shake him till you dump him on 
the floor. Idle people seek their couches, 
seek their beds to toss and weep, for a de- 
mon on them crouches, driving from their 
eyes the sleep. And the weary hours they 
number, and they cry, in tones distraught : 
1 ' For a little wad of slumber, I would give 
a house and lot!" When the long, long 
day is dying, and you watch the twinkling 
stars, knowing that you'll soon be lying, 
sleeping like a train of cars, be, then, 
thankful, without measure ; be as thankful 
as you can; you have nailed as great a 
treasure as the gods have given man ! 



46 



Business Prose -Poems 

Advice on Going. 



GO west, young man, as Greeley 
said, and carve out wealth and 
fame; if you're equipped with 
heart and head, you'll surely win 
the game. If you are brave and staunch 
and true, ambition in your breast, all 
things will surely come to you; so, then, 
young man, go west. Go east, young man, 
and win renown, the field's beyond com- 
pare; the toiler in the field or town may 
gain his laurels there. The youth who'd 
take a higher way than that of clod or 
beast will rise to noble heights some day; 
so, then, young man, go east. Go south, 
young man, to virgin field, and build your- 
self a home, returning only on your shield, 
as did the youth of Rome. Go to your work 
with willing hands and calm and restful 
mouth, and fortune waits for your com- 
mands; go south, good youth, go south! 
Go north — what boots it where you wend? 
All regions are the same; the earnest, hon- 
est soul, my friend, will win an honored 
name. Each country has its rich reward 
and gladly brings it forth for him who la- 
bors well and hard — go east, or west, or 
north! 



47 



Business Prose -Poems 



Tomorrow. 



TOMORROW," said the languid 
man, "I'll have my life insured, I 
guess ; I know it is the safest plan, 
to save my children from distress." 
And when the morrow came around, they 
placed him gently in a box; at break of 
morning he was found as dead as Julius 
Caesar's ox. His widow now is scrubbing 
floors, and washing shirts, and splitting 
wood, and doing fifty other chores, that 
she may rear her wailing brood. " To- 
morrow," said the careless jay, "I'll take 
an hour, and make my will; and then if I 
should pass away, the wife and kids will 
know no ill." The morrow came, serene 
and nice, the weather mild, with signs of 
rain; the careless jay was placed on ice, 
embalming fluid in his brain. Alas, alas, 
poor careless jay! The lawyers got his 
pile of cash; his wife is toiling night and 
day, to keep the kids in clothes and hash. 
Tomorrow is the ambushed walk avoided 
by the circumspect. Tomorrow is the fa- 
tal rock on which a million ships are 
wrecked. 



48 



Business Prose-Poems 

The Statistician. 



TWO men were wrangling o'er the 
tariff; one called the other man a 
seraph, or something stronger yet ; 
and after further dark blue phrases 
they punched each other's heads like 
blazes, till wet with blood and sweat. One 
hit the other with a shutter and knocked 
him endways in the gutter, with melan- 
choly chug ; and there, with wondrous wind 
and bottom, they scrapped till peelers 
came and got 'em, and put 'em in the jug. 
Then up there came the statistician, who 
stood, with pencil in position, and figured 
on a plank; "the energy those men expend- 
ed," he said, "before the scrap was end- 
ed, would turn a grindstone crank, three 
hundred million times, exactly; I've put 
the figures here compactly — they loom up 
fine as silk; that energy, if put to turning 
another crank, would do the churning of 
fifty tons of milk. That energy, of which 
I'm jawing, if harnessed down and put to 
sawing, would cut ten cords of oak; or it 
would pump two miles of water, or, in a 
butcher's yard, would slaughter twelve 
steers, and that's no joke. That energy, I 
say, dog-gone it, would operate, with 
wheels upon it, a coal mine, fifty years ' ' — 
but here his eloquence forsook him, and 
then his keepers came and took him, and 
held him by the ears. 

49 



Business Prose -Poems 



Hours and Ponies 



EVERY hour that's gone's a dead 
one, and another comes and goes; 
in the graveyard of the ages hours 
will find their last repose; and the 
hour that's come and vanished never can 
be used again ; you may long to live it over, 
but the longing is in vain. Lasso, then, the 
hour that's with you, ride it till its back 
is sore; you can have it sixty minutes — 
sixty minutes, and no more. Make it earn 
its board and lodging, make it haul your 
private wain, for when once it slips its 
halter it will never work again. So the 
hours, like spotted ponies, trot along in 
single file, and we haven't sense to catch 
them and to work them for a mile ; we just 
loaf around and watch them, sitting idly in 
the sun, and the darkness comes and finds 
us with but mighty little done. 



50 



Business Prose-Poems 



Speed Maniacs. 



I LIKE to read the daily paper, so 
many stories in it are: "James 
Jinks, the well known linen draper, 
was run down by an auto car. His 
head was split, his neck was broken, he had 
no chance of being cured ; the doctor heard 
his last words spoken — 'I should have had 
my life insured I ' ' ' " Today, while Ruf us 
Jones was speeding, in his new white and 
gold machine, he left a swath of dead and 
bleeding pedestrians where he had been." 
"We're not surprised that Jimmie Teeple 
is feeling proud and blithe and gay; he 
only maimed a dozen people while riding 
in his car today." "Hank Simpson's car, 
the owner in it, was out to make some rec- 
ord whirls; while traveling a mile a min- 
ute, it killed three boys and seven girls. 
There ought to be a law forbidding the 
kids from going on the street ; at any hour 
an auto, skidding, may wound or kill them, 
and^ repeat." "The motorists are holding 
rallies, demanding laws to guard their 
rights ; let folks on foot go through the al- 
leys and leave the streets for honking 
wights. ' ' 



51 



Business Prose -Poems 

Help Wanted 



1NEED a man," said the Merchant 
Prince, ' ' to work in my stately store ; 
I'll pay him well when he starts to 
work, and soon I will pay him more. 
I want a man with a spirit clean, and an 
honest, hopeful face; I want a man with 
an earnest wish to climb to the highest 
place. I have sought him high, I have 
sought him low, and I'm almost in despair; 
I've hunted all through the billiard halls, 
and I didn't find him there. I want a man 
with a purpose high that always he keeps 
in view ; I want a man with a soul attuned 
to the things that are good and true; a 
youth who knows that the rich reward's are 
not for the idle shirk; a youth who comes 
from a pleasant home, and comes with a zest 
for work; I have sought this youth till my 
feet are tired, and my mind is filled with 
care ; I looked for him in the grog bazaars, 
and I didn 't find him there. I want a youth 
with a healthy mind, who sees that the 
world is good, who knows that the men who 
win belong to industry's brotherhood; I 
want a youth who would rather own a dime 
that is fairly earned, than rolls of gold that 
were won at night in a room where the 
cards are turned ; alas, alas ! such a golden 
youth in this weary old world is rare ! I Ve 
looked and looked where the loafers rest, 
and I didn't find him there." 



52 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Smiling Mom 



1KNOW of a man who is smiling, all 
day, like a basket of greens; the mirth 
in his face is beguiling — he beats all 
the grinning machines. He smiles, 
for it brings him the money — he's boss of 
a prominent store; some say that he 
wouldn't be sunny, if he found that it paid 
him no more. He smiles at the maiden, the 
charmer, who to his emporium sails; he 
smiles at the honest old farmer, who comes 
to trade butter for nails; he smiles on the 
kid with a penny who asks for a section of 
gum; he'd smile on the bogies, if any 
should to his establishment come. When 
done is the day, with its labors, he home to 
his mansion repairs; and I am informed 
by his neighbors, who watch him from 
peepholes of theirs, that he is a reg'lar go- 
rilla, who snarls at his children and wife ; 
some day, with a bludgeon of willow, 
they'll knock all the smiles from his life. 
This smiling, that's boosted so often, is 
surely an excellent graft ; alas for the heart 
that won't soften, for the fellow who never 
has laughed! It's good to be cheery and 
winning, with laughter as light as the 
foam, and fine to do some of your grinning 
with children and mother, at home. 



53 



Business Prose-Poems 



Various Merchants. 



ONE day a man with a downcast 
face blew into the village grocer's 
place. " I've dealt with you many 
moons," he said; "I've bought 
your codfish and prunes and bread, and I 
always paid when I said I would, and you 
doubtless know that my credit's good. 
Now I'm out of work and without a dime, 
and I'd like to buy a few things on time." 
And the grocer sold him a lot of truck, and 
hoped he soon would have better luck. He 
told his tale to the butcher, then, at the 
drygoods store, to the clothing men; they 
all remembered that he had paid, and they 
were pleased when they got his trade ; and 
now that luck for a time had changed, he 
found no one of these men estranged. They 
sold him things in their stately stores, and 
wished him luck when he left their doors. 
And then the man of the luckless star 
dropped in at last at the booze bazaar. 
He told his tale; he was all, all in, but 
wanted credit for beer and gin. His coat 
was fanned by the barkeep's feet, and he 
bounced two yards when he hit the street. 



54 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Schoolmaster. 



MY teacher used to call me "Bub," 
and when he called he'd take a 
club, and roll his sleeves up to 
his chin, and scare me with his 
fishy grin; he'd show me where I'd have 
to stand, and tell me to extend my hand. 
"My son, it grieves me to the quick, that 
I must lam you with a stick," that tire- 
some teacher used to say, still grinning in 
his fiendish way. "The walloping may 
make you sore ; alas, it hurts your teacher 
more! Don't think, my lad, that when I 
whale your short ribs with this cedar rail, 
that I am glad to make you smart; it 
grieves and wounds me to the heart. Now, 
stand up here, you little dunce — ." He 
soaked me forty ways at once; he cracked 
me twice across the toes, and landed then 
upon my nose, and dotted me upon the 
chin as though he 'd like to drive it in. And 
as he swung his trusty pole he gasped the 
same old rigmarole: "It — does not — cause 
— your teacher — bliss — that he — must — 
slug — your — slats like — this!" I soon 
forgot the rain of blows, the swats he gave 
me on the nose; but o'er his dreary plati- 
tudes my spirit broods, and broods, and 
broods. And all my life I've found it thus ; 
a fellow will not make much fuss if For- 
tune uses him like sin — if she omits to rub 
it in! 



55 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Burden of Wealth. 



THERE was a man who had a roll so 
big 'twould plug a stovepipe hole. 
He longed to mingle with the crowd 
and show he wasn't vain or proud; 
to gain the confidence of those who labor 
hard and wear old clothes ; to prove he was 
a mighty man, built on a broad, heroic 
plan. But all his efforts failed, and he was 
plunged in dark blue misery. The fact 
that he was beastly rich dumped all his 
longings in the ditch. The people wouldn't 
overlook the figures in his banking book; 
they couldn't estimate his soul, or sepa- 
rate it from his roll. He gave his native 
town a park; "his conscience hurts him in 
the dark," the people said, and grimly 
smiled; "remorse will surely drive him 
wild." He gave a picnic to the poor, who 
bleak and squalid lives endure; the peo- 
ple said: "For vain display he throws his 
shining scads away; he listens to the pau- 
pers' sighs, and flaunts his bullion in their 
eyes. ' ' No matter what his plan or dream, 
the people saw a scurvy scheme behind it, 
and abused him sore, and threw it into him 
some more. And so he said, with aching 
heart: "The rich man lives a life apart; 
he can't get next the common squad while 
he is saddled with his wad; folks won't be- 
lieve he has a soul, because they know he 
has a roll." 

56 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Reliable Man. 



OLD Tolliver the tailor is making 
lots of scads; he has the trade of 
business men, and all the wealthy 
lads. While others are complain- 
ing that things are mighty slack, he's busy 
as a bumble-wasp, and adding to his stack. 
I order sundry garments, and ask when 
they'll be done; he studies for a moment, 
as solemnly as one who has no sort of lik- 
ing for idle, empty talk : ' ' Your rags will 
sure be ready at half past ten o'clock." He 
gives me this assurance and gravely turns 
away, to tinker with his tapeline around 
some other jay. All sorts of things may 
happen before the hour he set; perchance 
there'll be a deluge of water beastly wet; 
a fire may sweep the village, a cyclone 
snort around, perhaps a howling earth- 
quake will harrow up the ground. There 
may be labor riots, there may be battle's 
shock — but my rags will be ready at half 
past ten o'clock. Old Tolliver the tailor 
is prosperous and wise; he never makes 
excuses, he never deals in lies. He's care- 
ful with his promise, but when the same is 
made, it's good as royal warrant — and so 
he gets the trade. 



57 



Business Prose-Poems 



Get Busy. 



THE world rolls on, from day to day, 
and idle men are in the way; the 
loafing graft will never pay; get 
busy, then, get busy ! The man who 
loiters in the shade to watch the busy 
men's parade will find his hopes of for- 
tune fade; get busy, then, get busy! If 
you in feeble style depend upon assist- 
ance from a friend you're sure to fail be- 
fore the end — get busy, then, get busy! 
Make up your mind that you will pack 
your burden on your own broad back, and, 
grave and buoyant, hit the track — get busy, 
then, get busy! Just feel that you're of 
equal worth with any dog-gone man on 
earth, regardless of his age or birth; get 
busy, then, get busy! And, having made 
your mind up quite, show by your acts 
that you are right! Cut grass, cut grass, 
by day and night! Get busy, get busy! 



58 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Two Merchants. 



ONE merchant said to his toiling 
clerk: "I'm greatly pleased with 
the way you work. The chap who 
tends to his duties right is bound 
to win the worldly fight, and you're bound 
to get to the top some day; meanwhile I 
guess I'll advance your pay." glad was 
the heart of the clerklet then, and he buck- 
led down to his work again, and he made 
things hum in the blamed old store, as 
things had never been hummed before. In 
t'other storeroom, across the street, the 
clerks were working with frozen feet; the 
merchant carried a scowl all day, and 
groaned as he gave them their meagre pay; 
he never praised them when hard they 
wrought, but kicked and scolded, and made 
them hot ; and so they soldiered and fooled 
away the passing hours of each golden 
day. There's something wrong if you lay 
the blame on the men who help you to play 
the game, when things go crooked and 
trade is bum; your men would help you to 
make things hum, if they'd been treated 
in proper shape — been given posies instead 
of crape. 



59 



Business Prose -Poems 



Knowing Your Trade. 



ONE day I had to take a board and 
fix the roof, which let in rain; I 
sawed my fingers off and roared 
until the neighbors had a pain. I 
tried, and tried, to drive a nail, and every 
time the hammer missed; I toiled for 
hours without avail ; I broke my neck and 
sprained my wrist; I clawed the shingles 
off the roof, and piled up smoking words 
in tiers, till friends and neighbors stood 
aloof, and held their fingers to their ears. 
And then a carpenter I sought; of sawing 
boards a trade he makes ; he fussed around 
my lowly cot, and had it fixed in forty 
shakes. He knew just how to wield a saw, 
he knew just how to drive a nail ; he wore 
a smile, and from his jaw there came no 
language rank and stale. And when his 
little task was done, he came inside my 
humble home, and said, when he had got 
his mon: "I wish you'd read this little 
pome. I dashed it off the other night, when 
inspiration warmed my heart; I would 
that I might always write, for I'm a honey- 
bird on Art." I read two lines; then, with 
a roar, I tied him in a sailor's knot, and 
buried him beneath the floor of my ob- 
scure but happy cot. 



60 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Dark Days. 



SOME days are dark and punk and 
pruney, and all the world seems go- 
ing loony, and luck is off its base; 
and every little job you tackle just 
starts off wrong, and makes you cackle till 
cusswords fill the place. All day your evil 
fortune lingers; you stub your toes and 
mash your fingers, run slivers in your 
brow; and when you end your futile la- 
bors you are so mad you whip your neigh- 
bors, and poison some one's cow. I've 
had such days, and I discovered that evil 
fortune o'er me hovered, as long as I 
stayed mad; but always it got up and 
dusted, it's little lark blue graft was 
busted, when I looked bright and glad. 
When Old Bad Luck comes snooping round 
me, and tries to pester and confound me, I 
give my face a jerk, and spring a smile of 
seven acres, and call Bad Luck the worst 
of fakers, and buckle down to work. Bad 
Luck will linger if you curse it, or take 
it in your arms and nurse it, and soak it 
with your tears; but if it sees you laugh 
'twill travel, and just keep on a scratching 
gravel, for forty-seven years! 



61 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Salesman. 



TODAY I went to Jimpson 's store to 
buy a sugar-coated pill. This Mr. 
Jimpson is a bore, whose tongue 
out-clacks a coffee mill. All sorts 
of language then he tossed and bandied in 
his dismal haunt, for he was bound at any 
cost to sell me things I didn't want. "I've 
just received a splendid line of setting 
hens and spaniel pups, and safety spoons 
and binding twine, and boneless prunes 
and china cups." "I am," I said, "in 
frenzied haste, so don't detain me, I im- 
plore." But Jimpson grabbed me round 
the waist, and dragged me round his dingy 
store, and showed me divers kinds of junk, 
and filled me with his prices full, and 
everything I saw was punk, and I was 
madder than a bull. I bought an old 
stuffed crocodile, for which I paid an iron 
yen, the which he added to his pile, and 
smiled and said: "Pray, come again!" 
I'll go again when pigs have horns, and not 
before, you bet your hat ; my stately form 
no more adorns a blamed old robber's 
roost like that. I've always thought that 
merchants make an error when their goods 
they flaunt, insisting that their patrons 
take a lot of stuff they do not want. 



62 



Business Prose- Poems 



Shining Promises. 



DON'T tell me now, my Willie boy, 
of dazzling things you mean to 
do; for threats of that sort but 
annoy a sage whose years are not 
a few. I've noticed, in the passing years 
that those who seek the higher ways get 
down and work like brindle steers, and 
leave the talking graft for jays. I do not 
care a red for schemes, unless you work 
and watch and weep ; I do not give a whoop 
for dreams, unless you have them in your 
sleep. You Willie boys make golden plans, 
and all your plans to you seem good; but 
I will bet my pile on Hans who gets his 
saw and cuts the wood. You Willie boys 
are throwing fits o'er fortunes that will 
come to pass; but I admire the curves of 
Fritz, whose safety scythe is cutting grass. 
You Willie boys are scheming how to keep 
your fingers white and nice; but I have 
marked the sweat-stained brow of Hiram, 
who puts up the ice. Oh, Willie, if you'd 
really nail some honey in this busy hive, 
quit dreaming — get to work like Hail Co- 
lumbia, and you'll arrive! 



63 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Sturdy Yeoman. 



IF I could sing as Austin sings, and 
strike his master lyre, I would not 
give to queens and kings my words 
of living fire. For folks who loaf 
around on thrones don't need the poet's 
lay; they weary of his throbbing tones, 
and wish he'd go away. I'd sing about the 
man who rules his kingdom with a plow; 
who daily whacks his dusty mules, and 
milks the spotted cow. I'd sing about the 
sturdy plebe, who most appeals to me, who 
bravely breaks the stubborn glebe, what- 
ever glebe may be. The farmer raises 
wheat and corn, with plow and thingum- 
bob ; this world would be a place forlorn if 
he should jump his job. The men that 
we consider great, the rich, the men of 
fame, the mighty pillars of the state — all 
these might quit the game, and this old 
earth would jog along, and never throw 
a fit ; but things would soon be going wrong 
if all the farmers quit. And so I'd sing 
the yeoman's lay, if I had Austin's harp, 
immortalize the bale of hay, and boost the 
farming sharp; I'd pass up all the thrones 
and crowns, and all the princely trade, for 
men who come in hand-me-downs with eggs 
their hens have laid. 



64 



Business Prose- Poems 



The Just-as-Goods. 



THEY are swarming in the cities and 
the woods; you will find them in 
all earthly neighborhoods ; swiping 
thunder from their neighbors, prof- 
iting by others' labors — you have met them 
in your walks, the Just-as-goods ! Some 
inventor with a peck or two of brains, may 
produce a something new in aeroplanes; 
then the Just-as-goods will shark it, rush 
an airship on the market, and the good 
man gets his labor for his pains. You may 
write a little book that hits the spot, some- 
thing clever, with a brand new line of 
thought; and the Just-as-goods will grab 
it, and they'll imitate its habit, and they'll 
clutter up the bookstores with their rot. 
You may make a little painting or cartoon ; 
or invent a better way to cook a prune; 
and the Just-as-goods will travel on your 
trail, a-scratching gravel, and they'll fill 
your soul with sorrow pretty soon. E'en 
a poet who is old and tired and fat finds 
the Just-as-goods forever standing pat; 
and they imitate his verses, and he might 
indulge in curses, but there really wouldn't 
be much good in that. 



65 



Business Prose- Poems 



Excelsior. 



THE grocer said: "I have some 
good and satisfying breakfast 
food." I viewed with scorn and 
said: "Tut, tut! Your breakfast 
food is nothing but — excelsior! Men had 
more sense when I was young," I said, 
when I had oiled my tongue; "they lived 
on bread and wholesome meat, and never 
asked themselves to eat excelsior. Their 
grists they carried to the mill and had 
them ground and paid the bill; and they 
were men of brawn and pith; they never 
filled their stomachs with excelsior. Then 
men got value for their scads ; they reared 
up healthy girls and lads ; but now we feed 
them, day by day, on shredded thistles, 
toasted hay, excelsior. We toddle to the 
mill no more; we buy kids fodder at the 
store — the stuff put up by health food 
cranks : they carry in their little tanks ex- 
celsior. We're guilty of these measly 
crimes, and then we talk of stringent 
times, and at the country farm we die be- 
cause, like chumps, we always buy excel- 
sior. For good old meal I'll pay my rocks ; 
I want no sawdust in a box; to old time 
ways I stick like glue, and you won't see 
your uncle chew excelsior.* * 



66 



Business Prose- Poems 
The Untidy Store. 



THE grocer chased me up and down, 
in sunshine and in shade; he knew 
I always paid my bills, and yearned 
to get my trade. He hounded me 
and pestered me by every human means, 
until at last I sought his store to buy some 
boneless beans. He had some mouldy look- 
ing clerks, who loafed around the store, 
and combed their whiskers with their 
hands and watched the clock and swore. 
The floor was littered up with jugs and 
boxes, crates and kegs, containing unin- 
viting fruit, and prehistoric eggs. The 
floor itself had not been swept since Noah 
bossed the ark; the windows of the dreary 
joint with grime and dirt were dark. I 
took the grocer by the hand and led him to 
the street, and said: "Some friend should 
push you down and pat you with his feet. 
A man who runs a grimy store that's full 
of grimy clerks some day will see the 
sheriff come to close the whole blamed 
works. Go, turn the hose on all those 
clerks, and clean your dismal joint, and 
when you ask me for my trade I will not 
say 'Aroint!' " 



67 



Business Prose -Poems 



Signatures 



SOME unknown friend sat down and 
wrote to me a kind and pleasant note. 
His sentiments were mighty sweet; 
his penmanship was plain and neat 
until he tried to write his name, and then 
a fit attacked his frame. He must have 
suffered fearful pain to make a drawling 
so insane. Methinks I see him paw the air, 
and bite the rungs out of his chair. I only 
hope that some kind soul was there to push 
him, with a pole, into the ice-chest, there 
to lie until the fierce attack passed by. How 
sad it is so many men climb up and ride 
upon a pen, and splatter ink, and bust their 
hames, when they attempt to sign their 
names ! The note to which I have referred — 
could anything be more absurd? I've stud- 
ied it with tears and groans; sometimes 
I think the name is Jones, and then again 
I'd say it's Brown, with sundry letters 
upside down. Perhaps it's Smith; it may 
be Duff; I give it up — I've toiled enough. 
There ought to be some chloride cures for 
men with dizzy signatures; they make the 
angry passions rise, they bring hot water 
to the eyes, they waste the time of busy 
men, by their gymnastics with the pen. 



68 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Honest Grocer. 



I VISITED the grocer 's store and met 
the owner at the door, and said: 
"Say, Mr. Wheeze, I wish you'd 
tell me, straight and true, without 
evasion, whether you have got some first 
class cheese?" With great distress the 
grocer shrunk, and cried : ' ' The cheese we 
have is punk, it fairly makes me cry; it's 
bilious in its tint, and coarse; I wouldn't 
feed it to a horse; go somewhere else and 
buy. Of course," the grocer said, "I must 
confess I'd like to get your dust, and hold 
your trade, forsooth ; but when you ask me 
if my cheese is first rate goods and bound 
to please, I have to tell the truth." I 
clasped that grocer to my breast, and near- 
ly squashed him on my vest, and wiped 
away his tears. "You'll have my trade," 
I gaily cried, "and that of all my friends 
beside, for forty thousand years." And 
then I went into his store, and bought a 
ton of flour or more, and mackerel in kegs, 
and canned tobacco, beans and peas, and 
axle grease and whimetrees, and codfish, 
prunes and eggs. It took the largest vil- 
lage dray to haul my purchases away, and 
every time I pass I drop into that grocer's 
store and clasp him to my breast some 
more, and buy some garden sass. 



69 



Business Prose- Poems 

The Preacher's Snap. 



AND now I'll write my sermon," 
the preacher said, perplex 'd, "if I 
can but determine upon a fruitful 
text." He took his pen and 
started his labors to pursue; a woman 
broken-hearted came in and wept a few; 
and when he had consoled her, and shooed 
her from his den, encouraged her and told 
her to call around again, this news to him 
was carried — a pair of country folk were 
waiting to be married ; of course the groom 
was broke. And having duly spliced 'em, 
and blessed them from his door, he shook 
his brains and iced 'em, and tried to write 
some more. The telephone is ringing, a 
summons sharp and clear; his paper from 
him Hinging, he bends attentive ear. The 
voice of some one crying comes sobbing 
o 'er the wire : ' ' Old Quaekenush is dying 
— come quick' ere he'll expire!" And when 
that errand's ended, and to his little den, 
his weary way he's wended, and seized 
his trusty pen, a large donation party 
comes smiling to his shack, with greetings 
loud and hearty, and pattings on the back. 
They give him carpet slippers and hand- 
made woolen caps, and galvanized tin dip- 
pers, and other useless traps. And when 
at last he preaches, the leader of the choir 
in strident whisper screeches : ' ' Our min- 
ister lacks fire!" 



70 



Business Prose -Poems 

Thomas Edison 



YOU talk about your great big men ! 
This man, who tinkers in his den, 
and tackles problems weird and 
queer, and springs a triumph once 
a year, is such a mighty figure that the 
highest terms of praise seem flat. If I 
should toil for fifty years in sweat and 
agony and tears, and if some kind, well- 
meaning friend should come and tell me 
at the end that I had baled as much of hay 
as Thomas bales in half a day, that speech 
would surely make me yell with happiness 
too great to tell. The great inventors who 
are dead — each had one notion in his head ; 
and when he put that notion through, there 
was no more for him to do. He just sat 
round and drew his pay, and shriveled up 
and blew away. One big achievement was 
the stuff ; one great idea was enough. But 
Edison, that wizard weird, don't sit around 
and raise a beard, or gossip at the corner 
store about the days that are no more. No 
sooner does be lift our hair with some in- 
vention strange and rare, than to his noisy, 
smoky shops, with tools in hand he gaily 
hops, and fashions with his sledge and rasp 
something that makes the whole world 
gasp. Though small and thin he weighs a 
ton; he's twenty great men rolled in one. 



71 



Business Prose -Poems 



Forget It. 



IF you detest this vale of tears, forget 
it! If you've a whine for victims' 
ears, forget it; the folks who toddle 
to and fro and do their duties as they 
go don't care about your tale of woe — for- 
get, it. You think your mission is to teach I 
Forget it. You'd like a chance to make a 
speech? Forget it. Too many men like 
you have sinned by giving us less work 
than wind ; if you to noise your faith have 
pinned, forget it. You say the laws are all 
unjust? Forget it. They grind the poor 
man's face to dust? Forget it. The poor 
man who neglects his jaw to do a stunt with 
axe or saw will have no trouble with the 
law — forget it. You say your neighbors 
are unkind? Forget it. They persecute 
and rob you blind? Forget it. For folks 
are pretty much the same; the man who 
roars is most to blame; they'll treat you as 
you play the game; forget it. You have 
some gossip to relate ? Forget it. A scan- 
dal never pays the freight — forget it. A 
hundred bosoms have been wrung by evil 
stories you have sprung; if you've another 
on your tongue, forget it. 



72 



Business Prose -Poems 
The Unemployed 



JAMES JIMSON worked in Quimper's 
store. He doesn't work there any 
more. He was a calculating clerk 
who thought he knew just how much 
work a man should do to earn his pay — 
he drew about two bones a day. He was 
insistent on his rights; he doubtless sat 
up late at nights, the constitution to pe- 
ruse, and o'er his grievous wrongs to muse. 
He knew his duties to a hair ; he would not 
even dust a chair, or stoke the stove, or 
close a door — he wasn't paid to do that 
chore. His nature had grown harsh and 
sour through fear that he might work an 
hour for which he would not draw his pay ; 
he brooded o'er his rights all day, and 
dreamed about his rights in bed, until his 
rights went to his head. Then Quimper 
exercised his right, and fired young James 
one balmy night. He said: "I gave you 
every chance to flourish, prosper and ad- 
vance, but all your brains have turned to 
whey, and all your heart has turned to hay. 
A thousand men will gaily jerk their jack- 
ets off and do your work, and bless me that 
they have the chance — so please skedaddle, 
Mr. Pance." I pity him who snorts and 
fights and rips around about his rights ! 



73 



Business Prose - Poems 

My Wheelbarrow. 



MY trusty wheelbarrow is long and 
it's narrow; it's painted a beau- 
tiful delicate green; it's strong 
and it's handy; it's simply a 
dandy — a better wheelbarrow I never have 
seen. With joy that's abiding I take my 
wife riding; she climbs in the barrow, I 
wheel her around; and motorists guy me 
while joy-riding by me, but little I care 
for their laughter and sound. My good old 
wheelbarrow goes straight as an arrow, I 
push it before me with jubilant feet ; what- 
ever 'twas made for, it's mine — and it's 
paid for, and so I don't envy the autos I 
meet. I'd rather go wheeling my barrow 
and feeling my raiment grow moist with a 
rich, honest sweat, than ride in a carriage 
like groom to his marriage, and have the 
sad knowledge that I was in debt. Of all 
the world's curses there's nothing that 
worse is than going in debt for the things 1 
we don't need; so, blithe as a sparrow I 
push my wheelbarrow — keep tab on my mo- 
tions, get onto my speed! 



74 



Business Prose -Poems 

Early Birds 



THE early bird, so the sage affirms, 
is always catching the choicest 
worms ; and this is proof, says that 
wise old grouch, that man should 
hasten to leave his couch. But the richest 
sleep that a man can have, the kind that 
acts as a balm and salve, is the sleep that 
comes when he ought to rise if he'd be 
"healthy, wealthy and wise." When a 
man gets up ere his sleep is done, and 
starts a-scratching around for mon, he may 
be filling his coffers deep, but, jumping 
ginger ! he loses sleep ! A yard of slumber 
is worth more kale than anything in this 
gloomy vale. Let others rustle, their vig- 
ils keep, while I'm enjoying my morning 
sleep. Let others capture the festive 
plunk; I'll snore a few in my downy 
bunk. And when I rise, after sleeping 
much, 1 feel like working, to beat the 
Dutch; my head is clear and my mind se- 
rene, I am not grouchy, or cross or mean. 
I shall not be by the sages bossed; their 
heads are addled, their wires are crossed, 
and I do not suffer for early worms, or 
boa constrictors or toads or germs. 



75 



Business Prose -Poems 



An Epitaph. 



BENEATH this stone there lies at 
rest a man who always did his best. 
The sods ordained that he should 
move along a lowly, humble groove. 
For him there was no wealth or fame, he 
bore no proud ancestral name, no palace 
doors i'or him swung wide, but in his hut 
he lived and died. His years were many 
and his toil brought riches from the stub- 
born soil, but all that wealth to them was 
brought who owned the land whereon he 
wrought. He fashioned lumber and the 
boards made shelter for the languid lords. 
He fed the cows and herded swine that 
other men might nobly dine. From break 
of dawn till close of day he toiled along his 
weary way, and took his earnings in his 
hand to fatten those who owned the land. 
His feet were seamed with bramble scars, 
that others might have motor cars. This 
strip of ground is his reward; 'twas given 
by his overlord; it's six feet long and two 
feet wide, and here they brought him when 
he died. To labor hard for fifty years, en- 
dure the burdens and the tears, to have no 
grateful hours of rest, to toil, and bend, 
and do your best, to grind, and moil and 
delve and save, and at the last to get — a 
grave! Poor souls that in the darkness 
grope, and weave and spin and have no 
hope! 



76 



Business Prose -Poems 

Business and Sentiment 



IF I could write one noble song, I heard 
the poet cry, an anthem clear and 
bold and strong, too grandly pure to 
die, I would not care for worldly 
state — but that's a futile hope; I have to 
write a hundredweight of rhymes on Jim- 
son's soap. Could I, the sad musician 
said, produce one living strain, to haunt 
the world when I am dead, my soul would 
know no pain; to have men say the harp 
was struck by one great master hand ! But 
I must play — it's just my luck — the bass 
drum in the band. And thus it is and al- 
ways was since Time took up its path; 
poor foolish man rears up and paws the 
air in idle wrath. We think it vain for 
higher things to work, and plan, and try; 
unless we have some hand-made wings we 
know we cannot fly; and that is why we 
seldom soar much higher than the grass; 
we write cheap odes or make a roar on in- 
struments of brass. 



77 



Business Prose- Poems 



The Uusal Luck 



I SHOT an arrow into the air, and then 
I gave it no further care, but 
split some kindling and fed the hogs, 
and threw some bricks at the neigh- 
bors ' dogs, and did my chores with a joy- 
ous mind, and woe and trouble seemed far 
behind. That night a peeler came to my 
bed, and broke his billy upon my head, and 
bore me off to a mouldy cell, and there I 
sit on a stool and yell. And there it's like- 
ly that I'll remain ; my arrow ruined an 
aeroplane. It flew right into an airship's 
works, and made the rudder give mighty 
jerks, and knocked some cogs from the 
jinglegig, and tore a hole in thingumyjig. 
The man who rode on that ship in style was 
knocked from his perch, and fell a mile, 
and when he landed, alack! alas! he broke 
an acre of greenhouse glass. I'm charged 
with arson and larceny, and homicide in 
the steenth degree, and breach of promise 
and other crimes, and lawyers badger me 
for my dimes. I shot an arrow one evil 
day, I let it fly in my aleck way ; there was 
wood to saw, there were chores begun, 
there were useful tasks that I should have 
done, but I fooled around like a useless 
clam ; I shot my arrow, and here I am ! 



78 



Business Prose -Poems 



Salting Them Down. 



PUT seven dollars ($7) in the bank 
as soon as you can do it; prepare 
for seasons lean and lank, and you 
will never rue it. I used to blow 
my wages in as fast as I could earn them; 
whene'er I had some scads of tin, I made 
a rush to burn them. I bought all kinds of 
raiment gay, and shining ties and collars; 
and then one happy, fateful day, I pickled 
seven dollars ($7). I put those roubles 
down in brine — an impulse led me to it. 
And now just take this hunch of mine : Go 
thou likewise and do it. Those seven bones 
soon called for more, and eftsoons I had 
twenty; each week I put in three or four 
and soon I'll roll in plenty. Since I began 
this banking graft my self respect in- 
creases ; I feel that I'm as big as Taft, and 
just as slick as grease is. I am the young 
man unafraid, the youth with glad kyoodle ; 
the whole town wants to get my trade, be- 
cause I have the boodle. I do not fear the 
rainy day whereon the broke man hollers ; 
so take my plan — go right away and salt 
down seven dollars ($7). 



79 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Law-Boohs 



THE laws are numerous as flies upon 
a summer day; at making laws the 
statesmen wise still pound and 
pound away. No man on earth 
could recollect a list of all the laws; I 
tried it once — my mind is wrecked, and 
now you know the cause. Some gents who 
are in prison yet proclaim witn angry shout 
that they are so with laws beset, they 
really can't stay out. "A man can't walk 
around a block," I heard a sad man wail, 
"but what the cops will round him flock, 
and chuck him into jail." I heard the 
butcher man repine, and weep, and rail at 
fate, because he had to pay a fine for being 
short on weight. I heard the corner grocer 
snort, and use some language sour, be- 
cause they yanked him into court for sell- 
ing moldy flour. The milkman bottled 
half the creek, and sold it on his route ; he 
said: "The law just makes me sick," 
when friends had bailed him out. The 
laws are numerous as scales upon a fish, no 
doubt ; and so some people are in jails, and 
simply can't stay out; but all the time and 
everywhere one great truth stands out 
clear : The man who acts upon the square, 
has nothing much to fear. 



80 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Human Head 



THE greatest gift the gods bestowed 
on mortal was his dome of thought; 
it sometimes seems a useless load, 
when one is tired, and worn and 
hot; it sometimes seems a trifling thing, 
less useful than one's lungs or slats; a 
mere excuse, it seems, to bring us duns 
from men who deal in hats. Some men ap- 
preciate their heads, and use them wisely 
every day, and every passing minute sheds 
new splendor on their upward way; while 
some regard their heads as junk, mere idle 
knobs upon their necks ; such men are near- 
ly always sunk in failure, and are gloomy 
wrecks. I know a clerk who's served his 
time in one old store for twenty years; 
he's marked his fellows climb, and climb — 
and marked with jealousy and tears; he's 
labored there since he was young; he'll 
labor there till he is dead ; he never rose a 
single rung, because he never used his 
head. I know a poorhouse in the vale, 
where fifty-seven paupers stay; they paw 
the air and weep and wail, and cuss each 
other all the day; and there they'll loll 
while life endures, and there they'll die in 
pauper beds; their chances were as good 
as yours — but then they never used their 
heads. human head! Majestic box! 
wondrous can, from labels free ! If man is 
craving fame or rocks, he'll get them if 
he uses thee ! 



81 



Business Prose - Poems 
The Real Terror 



IF you should chance to mention Death, 
most men will have a grouch ; and yet 
to die is nothing more than going to 
your couch, when you have done your 
little stunt, performed the evening chores, 
wound up the clock, blown out the light, 
and put the cat outdoors. The good old 
world jogged smoothly on before you had 
your fling; and it will jog as smoothly on 
when you have cashed your string. King 
Death himself is good and kind; he always 
does his best to sooth the heart that's sor- 
rowful, and give the weary rest ; but there 
are evils in his train that daunt the stout- 
est soul, and one of them may serve to end 
this eheerful rigmarole. I always have a 
haunting dread that when I come to die, 
the papers of the town will tell how some 
insurance guy, paid up the money that was 
due to weeping kin of mine, before the 
funeral procesh had fallen out of line; and 
thus they'll use me for an ad, some Old 
Line Life to boom, before I've had a chance 
to get acquainted with my tomb! 



82 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Era of Progress 



THEY send information by wireless 
to land from ships far away; in 
cooking machines that are tireless 
our dinners are baked every day. 
The factory chimneys are smokless, where 
up-to-date methods prevail; the humor- 
ous papers are jokeless, and merchants 
succeed when they fail. We travel in car- 
riages horseless, propelled without water 
or fire, and run over people remorseless — 
unless they should puncture a tire. Our 
homes will be woodless and brickless, when 
Edison pours his cement ; but the Constant 
Subscriber who's kickless, won't write to 
the press, worth a cent! 



83 



Business Prose- Poems 



Pegging Away 



THERE'S room at the top for the 
fellow who's bound to land on the 
summit some day; the trail's pret- 
ty rough, and there's holes in the 
ground, and there's danger of going as- 
tray; but the top will be reached by the 
strong, patient soul, who ever is keeping 
his eyes on the goal, and always keeps 
pegging away. There's trouble to burn 
in this valley of grief, and the skies are 
oft sullen and gray, but a man never finds 
that it brings him relief to murmur and 
grumble and bray; he'll find that it lightens 
his burden of gloom, and chases his griev- 
ances clear up the flume, if he only keeps 
pegging away. It's tough to be poor when 
the insolent rich go past in their carriages 
gay, to jump from the highway and into 
the ditch, avoiding the wheels of their 
shay ; but you in your auto or carriage may 
ride, and stir up the dust of a whole coun- 
tryside, if you always keep pegging away. 
The men who are busy miss half of the woe 
that's hunting for victims to slay; they 
get all the cream in this valley below, while 
idlers subsist on the whey; while Fortune 
kicks others she'll give you a Mss, you'll 
win more applause, and you'll know more 
of bliss, if you always keep pegging away. 



84 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Coin Chaser 



THE rustler has a hundred schemes 
for raking in the rocks, and when 
he goes to bed he dreams of deeds, 
and bonds, and stocks; though 
young, he's bent and worn and gray, from 
heaping up his pile ; and so I round him up 
and say: "Oh, is the game worth while? 
You never let a coin get past, or miss a 
dividend; one-tenth of what you have 
amassed is more than you can spend; 
you've made yourself a mere machine, that 
works as with a crank ; and life to you can 
only mean a balance at the bank. The man 
who labors on the road, and earns two 
bones a day, who goes at eve to his abode, 
and smokes his pipe of clay, and reads a 
dry-goods catalogue, for want of something 
new, or gambols with the kid and dog, has 
far more fun than you. There's nothing 
in a lot of stocks to bring you happiness; 
and when you're nailed down in a box, 
they'll bring you even less." 



85 



Business Prose-Poems 



Lady Nicotine 



SMOKING is a filthy habit, and a big, 
fat, black cigar advertises that 
you're straying from the Higher Life 
afar. I have walked in summer 
meadows where the sunbeams flashed and 
broke, and I never saw the horses or the 
sheep or cattle smoke; I have watched the 
birds, with wonder, when the world with 
dew was wet, and I never saw a robin puff- 
ing at a cigarette; I have fished in many 
rivers when the sucker crop was ripe, and 
I never saw a catfish pulling at a briar pipe. 
Man's the only living creature that parades 
this vale of tears, like a blooming traction 
engine, blowing smoke from mouth and 
ears. If Dame Nature had intended, when 
she first invented man, that he'd smoke, 
she would have built him on a widely 
diff 'rent plan; she'd have fixed him with a 
damper and a stovepipe and a grate; he'd 
have had a smoke consumer that was strict- 
ly up-to-date. Therefore, let the erring 
mortal put his noisome pipe in soak — he 
can always get a new one if he feels he 
needs a smoke. 



86 



Business Prose- Poems 

The Auctioneer's Cry. 

I STOOD and watched the auctioneer, 
who bought things cheap and sold 
them dear. He had a large, abys- 
mal mouth, the which he pointed to 
the south, and from its dark recesses 
poured a flood of eloquence that soared. 
He'd dam the torrent now and then, and 
look upon the throng of men, and slam his 
fist the desk upon, and thunder : ' ' Going — 
going — gone!" What is there in that 
chaste refrain that makes it linger in my 
brain? I see the village sport go by, with 
dark blue breath and bloodshot eye, to try 
and ease his load of care by taking some of 
Fido's hair; I see him put his watch in 
pawn, and murmur: "Going — going — 
gone!" Here's Emma Jane on Cholly's 
arm; she doesn't mean a bit of harm, but 
she's acquired a notion wrong that life is 
but a dance and song. The peeler says 
her joyous feet are wearing furrows in the 
street. "I'll pinch her," says he, "some 
fine dawn." Another going — going — gone! 
So many hit the downward pike ! The kind 
of folks that all men like; the bright, the 
thoughtless and the gay, all hiking down, 
the same old way! We'll lecture them, and 
hand them tracts, and load them down 
with helpful facts, when they are safely 
jailed at last, but who will warn, as they go 
past, perdition's glaring road upon, these 
mortals going — going — gone ? 



87 



Business Prose-Poems 



Brass Tacks. 



IT'S seldom that I chase down to the 
wailing place. I see so many go to 
that resort of woe, fresh curses to in- 
vent, to roast the government, to 
boost the grouch's cause, to clamor for 
new laws, to have the old repealed, that all 
men may be heeled. And I am baling hay, 
the good old fashioned way. I do my daily 
grind with calm, contented mind; I'm ut- 
tering no roars ; I have no corns or sores ; 
the world seems pretty gay, while I am bal- 
ing hay. These men who rant and fret 
o'er perils they have met, who prance and 
chew the rag about the country's flag and 
how it flaunts and waves above a gang of 
knaves — what fun do they extract from 
this, their daily act? What good do they 
pursue with all their whoopsydo? What 
comforts have they bought with all their 
tommyrot? What bogies have they slain 
with all their toil and pain? I earn my 
livelihood by sawing piles of wood; I saw 
the whole year long, and I see nothing 
wrong. I always get my pay when ended 
is the day, and to my home repair, and find 
no wailing there. 



88 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Time Killer 



OTIME hung heavy on my hands, 
for I had naught to do; the 
hourglass dripped its sluggish 
sands as slow as flowing glue. 
And so I said: "This sad life wends like 
leaden-footed whales; and so I'll call upon 
my friends, and tell them merry tales. It 
may relieve this heart of mine, and pass 
an hour away, and make the sun of glad- 
ness shine on lives too dark and gray." 
I called upon a busy man and told an anec- 
dote ; he left his chair and blithely ran, and 
seized me by the coat, and pushed me gaily 
through the hall, and kicked me down the 
stairs, and made remarks concerning gall, 
and pelted me with chairs. I sat upon the 
pavement then, and mused in somber 
strain : ' ' Though I would help my fellow- 
men, my work seems all in vain. I try to 
cheer the gloomy town, and work the sun- 
shine graft, yet people simply drop me 
down the elevator shaft. There surely 
must be something wrong with optimistic 
stunts, for when I sing my sunshine song 
the hearer simply hunts for clubs and 
bricks and things like those wherewith to 
pound my head, and break my back and 
spoil my clothes, and leave me two-thirds, 
dead." The cop who helped me to arise 
remarked: "You're slugged again? Take 
my advice, my friend; be wise — don't 
bother busy men!" 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Idle Hen. 



I HAVE a large Buff Cochin hen. I 
keep her in a gaudy pen, and there 
she fusses all the day, and never 
takes the time to lay. In summer 
time, when eggs were cheap, that hen would 
lay eggs in her sleep; she laid enough to 
feed a troop; she piled them up all round 
the coop. I used to take those eggs of hers 
and threw them at the passing curs; for 
all the world was daubed with eggs; they 
fetched three cents per dozen kegs. But 
now that winter raves and groans, and 
eggs are scarce as precious stones, that 
silly hen just loafs all day, and doesn't 
earn her corn and hay. Some day, when 
wearied by the strife that marks this jour- 
ney we call life, when with a deep convic- 
tion fraught that chicken pie would hit the 
spot, I'll kill that old hen, I'm afraid, and 
then she'll wish that she had laid. There's 
nothing worse, you'll all agree, than mis- 
directed energy. The hen that lays when 
eggs are cheap, and when they're dear lies 
down to sleep; the dog that barks when 
nothing's wrong, and sleeps when burglars 
come along; the man who tills on Sabbath 
day, and loafs the whole long week away — 
these from one's eyes the tears would 
draw ; there surely ought to be a law. 



90 



Business Prose -Poems 



Admirable CricMon 



THEY tell about a wondrous man 
who died ere you were born ; and I 
believe the tales I've heard about 
him — in a horn. They say this 
gentleman excelled in everything he tried ; 
and he could write a lovely ode, or pierce 
a swordsman's hide; or plan a war or kiss 
a cook, or sing a serenade; he was the 
glory of his sex ; when can his glory fade ! 
With all his skill I've never heard of any- 
thing he's done that helped to brighten up 
the world or cheer a weary one. The 
Crichtons do not cut much grass outside 
the poet's page; the world is wanting spe- 
cialists in this prosaic age. Don't try to 
learn a gross of things, to make admirers 
yell; to learn one thing is quite enough — 
but learn that one thing well. I'd rather 
build a wall of mud and do the job up 
brown, than have a hand in every trade 
that's humming in the town. For men who 
favor walls of mud, would see how well I 
wrought, and when they're wanting walls 
themselves, they'd hire me on the spot. No 
odds how humble be your task, if you make 
up your mind to do it better than 'twas 
done in all the years behind, the world will 
hear about your skill, will know that you 
excel; so learn to do one kind of thing, 
and learn to do it well. 



91 



Business jP rose- Poems 



The Man Who Waits. 



ALL things will come to him who 
waits, the wise man said, and went 
to bed, but history, methinks, re- 
lates that they don't get there till 
you're dead. It is a creed for lazy men, 
for idlers in the market place ; the man who 
tries and tries again — that chap the good 
things always chase. I used to throw my 
hours away, I loafed through many sunny 
Junes, while other men were making hay, 
and nothing came to me but prunes. 
"Good things will come some joyous 
morn," I said, "if I stay on the job." And 
other men were eating corn while I was 
chewing on the cob. And after many years 
I said : ' ' That logic's surely out of plumb ; 
I've waited till my nose is red, and still 
the good things do not come." Then I 
rolled up my gingham sleeves, and cracked 
my heels and gave a yell, and started 
bringing in my sheaves, since which I've 
done surpassing well. I own a cow, a pair 
of pigs, a phonograph without a crank, and 
divers other thing-my-jigs, and have six 
dollars in the bank. 



92 



Business Prose -Poems 



Sir Walter Raleigh 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH sat in jail, 
removed from strife and flurry; the 
light was dim, his bread was stale, 
and yet he didn't worry. He knew 
the headsman, grim and dour, with sleeves 
uprolled and frock off, might come to him 
at any hour, and cut his blooming block 
off. He knew that he would evermore with 
dismal chains be laden, till he had trav- 
eled through the door that opens into Ai- 
denn. To have his name wiped off the map 
King James was in a hurry; and yet — he 
was a dauntless chap ! — he still refused to 
worry. Serenely he pursued his work, and 
wrote his lustrous pages, serenely as a 
smiling clerk who writes for weekly wages. 
And when the headsman came and said: 
"I hate the job, Sir Walter, but I must ask 
you for your head," the great man did not 
falter. * \ Ofad'zooks, ' ' quoth he, "and eke 
odsfish ! Thou art a courteous shaver! 
Take off my head ! I only wish I might re- 
turn the favor!" And so the headsman 
swung the axe, beneath the sky of Surrey ; 
Sir Walter died beneath his whacks, but 
still refused to worry! 



93 



Business Prose -Poems 

Willie and Johnnie. 



WHEN the boss suggests to Wil- 
lie that he do this chore or that, 
Willie goes a-hustling to it, 
quicker than a circus cat, and 
he acts as though he liked it; when one 
little job is through, he comes loping back 
inquiring if there's nothing else to do. 
And the boss, whose heart is weary of in- 
competents and drones, says: "He's earn- 
ing better wages — I must see he gets more 
bones." When the boss remarks to John- 
nie, "Go and sweep the ceiling now," 
Johnnie goes about the business with a 
dark and gloomy brow ; in a weary, listless 
fashion he performs his little chore, al- 
ways looking, always squinting at the clock 
above the door. And the boss, whose 
heart is harrowed, sizes up that languid 
boy, and remarks : ' ' That blooming young- 
ster isn't worth three whoops in Troy." 
Oil, the mantle of Elijah falls upon me now 
and then, and I gaze into the future, see 
the boys grow into men; and I mark the 
rise of Willie to the shining heights of 
fame, and I'm onto little Johnnie losing 
out at every game. 



94 



Business Prose-Poems 



A Bale of Hay 



SOME bards their harpstrings deftly 
strike, and sing of roses and the like; 
of coral isles and starlit seas and 
birds whose plumage gilds the breeze, 
but when I sing at close of day, my song 
is of a bale of hay. wondrous bale, that 
takes me back across the years on dreamy 
track to sunny fields where strong men 
wrought — the fields that idlers never 
sought. With wringing raiment on their 
backs they shaped their windrows and 
their stacks; I see and hear it all again, 
the cheery voices of the men, the thirsty 
with uptilted jugs, the horses straining in 
their tugs, the mower's clanking, raucous 
roar, the glad march home when day was 
o'er. And when the hay was cured and 
bright, and aptly named the mule 's delight, 
they fed it to the press and made the bale 
for which my harp is played. Each hand- 
ful of this fragrant hay suggests a long, 
long summer day of honest, wise produc- 
tive toil, of wrestling with the parent soil. 
No dreamers made this bulky bale ; no trif- 
ling men or poets pale; no loafers placed 
the wire around, no lily fingers raked the 
ground, but men of might were there that 
day, and wrought to build that bale of hay. 
And so with lilting roundelay do I embalm 
the bale of hay. 



95 



Business Prose-Poems 



Dreams and Grub 



I WANDERED o'er the sunlit lea, andi 
gathered roses as I went, and all the 
wild birds sang to me, and filled me 
with a sweet content; my neighbor, 
of a grosser mould, toiled in the field the 
whole day long, lured ever on by lust for 
gold, and blind to Beauty, deaf to Song. 
I lay beside the sobbing stream, all through 
the golden summer day, and journeyed on 
a magic dream to fairy regions far away; 
the sky was blue, the day was hot — as hot 
as weather ever was ; and still my neighbor 
sternly wrought, and hoed his beans with- 
out a pause. Alas, the days of June were 
gone; I heard the voice of Winter rave, 
and shivered in an arctic dawn, and wept 
for summers in their grave ; my empty cup- 
board brought to mind my sordid neigh- 
bor's bounteous store, and so I dared the 
shrieking wind, and got a handout at his 
door. 



96 



Business Prose-Poems 



Mary's Lamb. 



MISS MARY had a little lamb; 
the fact 's well known, gadzooks ! 
With many a chart and diagram, 
it's written in the books. And 
it is also written there how Mary went to 
school, and how the teacher broke a chair 
upon the lambkin's wool; but history nar- 
rates no more, and Mary and her sheep 
drop out of all the schoolhouse lore, and in 
oblivion sleep. Oh, Mary, when you lived 
your days, so long, so long ago, this weary 
world had simpler ways, and lambs were 
white as snow! Yes, lambs were white as 
snow, my dear, and little maids like you 
would curtsey once and disappear, when 
their brief stunts were through. If you were 
living in this age of dust and sounding 
brass, we'd see you prancing on the stage, 
and eke the lamb, alas ! The teacher, too, 
who turned him out, as though he were a 
dog, would hold the boards a while and 
spout a dreary monologue. The children, 
too, who lingered near, would profit by 
their fame; between the acts they would 
appear and spring the "comic" game. Oh, 
all would do their little spiels, and draw 
their princely wage; the schoolhouse 
would be put on wheels, and hauled across 
the stage! 



97 



Business Prose-Poems 



Toiler and Dreamer. 



I SAT at the feet of the poet, and I 
heard that poet say: "The dreamer 
lives forever, and the toiler dies in 
a day!" In love with the poet's 
genius, and charmed by his sweet refrain, 
I said: "I will cease to labor, for labor 
imparts a pain; afar to the land of lotus 
on shimmering dreams I'll stray, for the 
dreamer lives forever, and the toiler dies 
in a day!" Then up spake my Aunt 
Eliza, and this was her message: "Rats! 
The poet is talking nonsense! His head- 
piece is full of bats ! The dreamer is but 
a loafer, who ought to be in the pound; I 
bow to the busy worker who's making the 
wheels go round! The dreamer is sitting 
idle, a-whittling a hemlock club, and his 
wife is bearing burdens or laboring at the 
tub. The toiler is earning money as he 
journeys his useful way; he's putting 
away a bundle for age and the wintry day. 
The dreamer is writing verses on mer- 
maids and stars and pools; the toiler is 
paying taxes and helping to build the 
schools. The song I have heard you sing- 
ing is that of a lazy jay ; the dreamer goes 
to the poorhouse, while the toiler's bal- 
ing hay!" 



98 



Business Prose-Poems 



Whiskers 

MAN shaves with all his might, and 
keeps the lather flowing; he 
shaves by day and night, and 
whiskers keep on growing. The 
corn may wilt and die in hot winds that 
are blowing beneath a brazen sky, but whis- 
kers keep on growing. The crop of wheat 
may fail, the oats may make no showing, 
while ruined farmers wail, but whiskers 
keep on growing. I've lost my crop of 
beans, there are no peas surviving; but 
still my whiskerines are flourishing and 
thriving. The plants that bring us mon 
all kinds of care are needing; we labor in 
the sun, at hoeing and at weeding; when 
shipped they bring us dough, to pay us 
for their crating; and still our whiskers 
grow, and need no cultivating. We do not 
sprinkle them with Paris green and water, 
the ravages to stem of bugs that gnaw and 
slaughter; we do not set up poles between 
the rows of whiskers, or set our traps for 
moles, field mice and other friskers. Our 
whiskers need no care, no chemicals to 
nourish; they rear their fronds in air like 
island palms, and flourish. But in the mar- 
ketplace, where people buy and barter, the 
whiskers on your face won't bring a bogus 
quarter. And that's the way things go 
throughout the world, my neighbor; the 
things that bring us dough are fruits of 
care and labor. 



99 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Dipper. 



HOW dear to my heart was the 
trusty old dipper that hung by 
the pump in the brave days of 
old ! It made a man frisky, con- 
tented and chipper, to drink from that dip- 
per a draught sweet and cold. "We came 
from the harvest field, where we'd been 
goaded by ruthless employers, and kept on 
the jump, and stood there and drank till 
our innards exploded, and blessed the old 
dipper that hung by the pump ; that rusty 
tin dipper, that weather stained dipper, 
that life giving dipper that hung by the 
pump. But now, in the blistering heat of 
the June time, we go to the well with our 
tongues hanging out, and wrestle around 
that old pump all the noon time, in trying 
to drink a few drops from the spout. The 
bughouse germ doctors have banished the 
flagon from which we all drank when we 
met at the pump ; no more can the boys get 
a hard water jag on; the trusty old dip- 
per has gone to the dump; the long hand- 
led dipper, the mail order dipper, the soul 
soothing dipper has gone to the dump ! 



100 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Jealous 



ONE time there was a man of brain 
who early learned to strive and 
strain, and make each passing 
minute count; and so he climbed 
up Fortune's mount, and took possession 
of the top ; and there he heard the failures 
yawp. Their voices came from far below, 
surcharged with hatred, malice, woe. "It's 
true he passed us on the way," he heard 
the sad-eyed failures say; "but he has con- 
quered by a fluke; the fates, that gave us 
grim rebuke, and gall and wormwood by 
the peck, for him had nod, and smile, and 
beck. He gathered roses day by day, but 
only thistles came our way; such luck as 
his will help a man far more than any 
merit can; if merit counted we'd be now 
up there upon the mountain's brow, and 
he'd be rustling far below, where thistles, 
weeds and sandburs grow. This world is 
cold and bleak and drear; injustice is the 
order here; the men who ought to win 
the prize get slugged by Fate, between 
the eyes, and skates who should be in the 
soup, go soaring skyward with a whoop." 
The man who stood on high, alone, took 
from his grip a megaphone, and through 
it shouted to the jays who jarred the moun- 
tain with their brays: "Cut out complaint 
and idle yawp; work! work! and you may 
reach the top!" 



101 



Business Prose -Poems 



Salted Samoleons 



GOME, let us strain both brawn and 
brain, to pile up mighty heaps 
of plunder; let us toil, and 
grind, and moil, and let amuse- 
ment go to thunder ! In divers climes we'll 
nail the dimes, by methods white, or meth- 
ods yellow; we'll keep up steam, and plan 
and scheme, and sometimes soak the other 
fellow. We have no time for song or 
rhyme, or plays or other things diverting; 
the eager lust for dough and dust is grip- 
ping us until it's hurting. We have no 
heart for works of art, for statues sculped 
by grand old masters; our greenback 
dreams and get there schemes stick tighter 
than adhesive plasters. We can't afford 
to leave our board for half a day to go 
a-fishing; to grab the plunk and kindred 
junk — that is the burden of our wishing. 
Aod thus we strive while we're alive, and 
jog upon our joyless journey; and when 
we croak — this is the joke — our wad is 
swiped by some attorney! 



102 



Business Prose-Poems 



It Might Be Worse 



MISFOETUNES are thick in this 
valley of tears, the moans of the 
sorrowful come to our ears; the 
law of hard luck seems the gov- 
erning law, and a package of grief is the 
prize that we draw. But if we would cut 
out the weeping and sighs, and quit pump- 
ing brine from out water-logged eyes, we 'd 
soon find our troubles and sorrows dis- 
perse; for there's nothing so bad that it 
couldn't be worse. It's well to reflect, 
when you're burdened with care and 
Trouble comes down with his feet in the 
air, that others have suffered as deeply as 
you, and raised just as much of a hullaba- 
loo, and others have found that a bundle 
of woe is easy to lose, if you only think so. 
From the day you are born till you ride in 
the hearse, there is nothing so bad that it 
couldn't be worse. One day I was ranting 
around, pretty glum, for a felon was hold- 
ing the fort on my thumb; the surgeon 
came in with his saw, and avowed that I 
was a baby for yelling so loud; "I sawed 
off the leg of your neighbor," he said, 
"and never a whimper came out of his 
head." Oh, it's true as you live that — ex- 
cepting this verse — there is nothing so bad 
that it couldn't be worse! 



103 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Agents 



NOW the festive agent crakes from 
his lengthy winter sleep, and his 
cheerful way he take-, selling 
doodads wondrous cheap. You 
may hear him at the door, for he's always 
on the job, and he'll go away no more till 
he sells a thingumbob: till he sells a pat- 
ent churn, or a thing for grinding hash, 
or a lamp that will not burn, or a can of 
succotash: or a mile of lightning rod. or a 
sheet-iron feeding trough — 0. he'll touch 
you for your wad. and you cannot head him 
off! Which is why I rise to say that there 
ought to be a law. giving men the right to 
slay agents of the rubber .jaw. and to plant 
them in the yard where the doodlewhang- 
ers grow, and to press the dirt down hard, 
and some jimpson seed to sow. For the 
things the agents sell are the things we 
never need ; and the talk they love so well 
makes the hearts of victims bleed. 



104 



Business Prose-Poems 



Trouble Either Way. 



I THREW my money at the birds ; and 
sages came with warning words, 
and talked about the rainy day. 
"You ought to file your scads 
away," the sages said, "for winter use; 
don't always have your purse-strings 
loose. You may fall sick, or blind, or 
dumb, and when the high-priced sawbones 
come, and druggists charge you for their 
pills and nurses spring their little bills, 
you'll breathe a wish, in bitter tones, that 
you had salted down some bones." Their 
discourse was so wise and grave that I at 
once began to save; I carried bundles to 
the bank until exertion made me lank; I 
saved and saved until my roll would do to 
plug a stovepipe hole, and then (it broke 
the banker's heart!) I blew it for a motor- 
cart. It's painted red and gold and green, 
and fairly thirsts for gasoline. It pants 
and snorts and smokes and tears, and wild- 
ly calls for more repairs. I like the good 
old spendthrift way, to blow one' roubles 
day by day; I like to waste wealth as it 
comes, in small and unobtrusive sums; 
that's better than to skimp and shave, and 
pinch, economize and save for months to- 
gether, like a dunce, and then blow in your 
wad at once. 



105 



Business Prose- Poems 



The Commercial Basis. 

1HAVE lived a long time in this val- 
ley of tears, and my head has been 
whitened by hurrying years; I've 
sized up the world as I toddled 
along, I've sampled the right and I've sam- 
pled the wrong; I have herded with goats 
and I've frolicked with sheep, I have 
learned how to laugh, and I've learned how 
to weep ; I have loafed, I have dreamed, I 
have whacked up some wood, and I'm sure 
of this fact, that it pays to be good. When- 
e'er I do wrong, with malicious intent, 
then I feel for a while like a counterfeit 
cent ; I would swap myself off for a watch 
made of brass, I haven't the courage to 
look in the glass. But when I do right, 
then how chesty I feel! The village is 
filled with my jubilant spiel ! I feel that a 
feather is placed in my hood, and I guess I 
am right, for it pays to be good ! Oh, what 
are the things of particular worth? And 
what are the prizes we gain upon earth? 
They are not the gems that go clickety- 
clank, they are not the bundles we have in 
the bank. Respect of our neighbors, the 
love of our friends, some credit up there 
where the firmament bends — these things 
are the guerdon for which we should strive, 
they give us an object in being alive. And 
you'll never gain them, as gain them you, 
should, unless you believe that it pays to 
be good. 

106 



Business Prose-Poems 



Once in a While 



ONCE in a while I am weary, and 
sick of the harrowing grind ; weary 
of losing the orange, and chewing 
away at the rind; weary of put- 
ting up castles, and calling them castles of 
hope, only to find they are bubbles, and 
made of inferior soap. Once in a while I 
grow weary of seeing the other men win, 
while I am fussing behind them, bewail- 
ing the box I am in ; all that I do is so fu- 
tile, and all that I hope is in vain; I seem 
to be shy of the wisdom to try to get out 
of the rain. Once in a while I grow weary 
of living on soup bones and slaw; ah, how 
I'm longing and yearning to feed a large 
pie to my jaw! Then I grow morbid and 
bitter, and savagely gnaw at my pen ; why 
can't I win in life's battle, like other more 
fortunate men? Once in a while I grow 
lucid, and place a wet towel on my head, 
and say to these morbid reflections: "Go, 
roost with the things that are dead! 
Heaven has treated me better than such a 
four-flusher deserves; it's me for my high- 
est endeavor, so watch, and get onto my 
curves ! ' ' 



107 



Business Prose-Poems 



Plutocrat and Poet 



GOOD old opulent John D.! He 
would look with scorn on me; I 
consider I'm in luck, when I have 
an extra buck ; buying ice or buy- 
ing coal always keeps me in the hole, and 
when I have paid the rent I am left without 
a cent. Yet I'm always gay and snug, 
happy as a tumblebug, having still the best 
of times, grinding out my blame fool 
rhymes! Old John D., on t'other hand, 
frets away to beat the band; he is bur- 
dened with his care — though he isn't with 
his hair — and his health is going back, and 
his liver's out of whack, and his conscience 
has grown numb, and his wishbone's out 
of plumb, and he's trembling all the day 
lest a plunk may get away. Better be a 
cornfed bard, writing lyrics by the yard, 
with an appetite so gay it won't balk at 
prairie hay, than to have a mighty pile, 
and forget the way to smile! 



108 



Business Prose -Poems 



Saturday Night 



SATUEDAY night, and the week's 
work done, and the Old Man home 
with a bunch of mon! You see him 
sit on the cottage porch, and he puffs 
away at a five-cent torch, while the good 
wife sings at her evening chores, and the 
children gambol around outdoors. The Old 
Man sits on his work-day hat, and he 
doesn't envy the plutocrat; his debts are 
paid and he owns his place, and he'll look 
a king in the blooming face ; his hands are 
hard with the brick and loam, but his heart 
is soft with the love of home! Saturday 
night, and it's time for bed! And the kids 
come in with a buoyant tread; and they 
hush their noise at the mother's look, as she 
slowly opens a heavy book, and reads the 
tale of the stormy sea, and the voice that 
quieted Galilee. Then away to bed and the 
calm repose that only honesty ever knows. 
Saturday night, and the world is still, and 
it's only the erring who find things ill; 
there is sweet content and a sweeter rest, 
where a good heart oeats in a brave man's 
breast. 



109 



Business Prose -Poems 



Wanderlust 



THE place he lived in never suited; 
he hankered to be gone ; and so he 
packed his grip and scooted, a 
little farther on. A while he 
paused in our calm valley, where all the 
virtues bloom, but left it for a frowsy alley, 
and seventh-story room. And when of city 
life he wearied, he northward turned his 
toes, and hired an Eskimo, and Pearyed 
among the Arctic snows. And when of 
toes about a dozen were icy, stiff and stark, 
he left those regions, white and frozen, for 
jungles hot and dark. His youthful 
friends grew fat and wealthy, with children 
at their knees, and made their homes in 
climates healthy, but he'd have none of 
these. Some other place was always better 
than that where he abode, and so, on snow- 
shoes or in sweater, again he hit the road. 
And when this wanderer was dying, one 
cold and dreary dawn, "I'll have some 
fun," they heard him sighing, "a little 
farther on!" 



no 



Business Prose-Poems 

The Tightwad 



THE tightwad is a pleasant soul who 
freezes strongly to his roll, until 
he hasn't any; his bundle colors all 
his dreams, and when awake he's 
full of schemes to nail another penny. He 
counts his roubles day by day, and when 
a nickel gets away, it nearly drives him 
dotty; he grovels to the man of biz who 
has a bigger roll than his, and to the poor 
he's haughty. All things upon this earth 
are trash that can't be bought or sold for 
cash, in Tightwad's estimation; the sum- 
mer breeze, because it turns the cranks of 
mills and pumps and churns, receives his 
toleration; the sum is useful in its way; it 
nourishes the wheat and hay — so let the 
world be sunny; he likes to hear the rain- 
drops slosh; they help the pumpkin, beet 
and squash, and such things sell for money. 
The tightwad often is a bear around his 
home, and everywhere, and people hate or 
fear him; since kindness has no market 
price, it's waste of effort to be nice to 
victims who are near him. Methinks that 
when the tightwad dies, and to his retribu- 
tion flies, his sentence will be funny; they'll 
load him with a silver hat, and boil him in 
a golden vat, and feed him red-hot money ! 



ill 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Important Man 



YOU know the man of kingly air! 
Yon run across him everywhere. 
He seems to think his hat a crown ; 
he talks as thongh he handed 
down most all the wisdom that the seers 
have gathered in a thousand years. His 
dignity is most snblime; to joke about him 
is a crime, and when you meet him it is 
wise to lift your hat and close your eyes ; 
and it would please him if you'd just lie 
down and grovel in the dust. That is the 
wiser course. I say, but I'm a feeble- 
minded jay, and when I meet the swelled- 
up man, I jolly him the best I can ; I would 
to him the fact recall that he's but mortal, 
after all. He's naught but bones and legs 
and trunk, and lungs and lights, and kin- 
dred junk ; he breathes the same old germy 
air that's breathed by hoboes everywhere. 
And when he dies, as die he must, he'll 
make as cheap a grade of dust as any Rich- 
ard Roe in town ; the monument that holds 
him down may tell his glories for a while, 
but folks will read it with a smile, and say : 
' 'That dead one must have thought that 
he was Johnnie on the spot, when he was 
on this earthly shore; I never heard of 
him before." 



112 



Business Prose-Poems 

The Showy Horse. 



1SATD: "111 take Bucephalus and 
drive him twenty miles ; he 's always 
pawing in the barn, and puts on lots 
of style; he's suffering for exercise; 
he's eager for the fray, and he will fairly 
eat the road and throw the leagues away!" 
I hitched him up and started off; he fairly 
split the wind, and I was full of harmless 
pride, and held the reins and grinned. The 
charger trotted half a mile as though from 
mortar fired, and then he lost all interest, 
and seemed extremely tired. I wore out 
half a dozen clubs, and urged him to go 
fast; in vain! he loafed along the road and 
watched the snails whiz past; I pushed him 
on the homeward road for many a weary 
verst, and then I sold him to a friend, and 
now he's wienerwurst. I know a half a 
hundred men just like that foaming steed; 
they go to work as though they'd 
make their eager fingers bleed; they 
fuss and sweat and paw the ground, 
and make an awful din, but when the mid- 
day heat comes on, their energy's all in. 
I like the good old steady horse that plods 
along his way, as though determined that 
he'll earn his lodging and his hay; I like 
the quiet, earnest man, who buckles to his 
job without the sort of useless fuss that 
captivates the swab. 



113 



Business Prose -Poems 

Pretty Good Schemes 



IT 'S a pretty good scheme to be cheery, 
and sing as you follow the road, for 
a good many pilgrims are weary, and 
hopelessly carry the load ; their hearts 
from the journey are breaking, and a rod 
seems to them like a mile; and it may be 
the noise you are making will hearten them 
up for a while. It's a pretty good scheme 
in your joking, to cut out the jest that's 
unkind, for the barbed kind of fun you are 
poking, some fellow may carry in mind; 
and a good many hearts have been broken, 
a good many hearts fond and true, by 
words that were carelessly spoken by 
alecky fellows like you. It 's a pretty good 
scheme to be doing some choring around 
while you can ; for the gods with their gifts 
are pursuing the earnest, industrious man ; 
and those gods, in their own El Dorado, 
are laying up wrath for the one who loafs 
all the day in the shadow, while others toil, 
out in the sun. 



114 



Business Prose-Poems 



A Rise in Value 



THE farmer said to James, his son: 
"Old Dobbin's usefulness is done; 
I've worked him now for thirty 
years, and while it fills my eyes 
with tears to have you shoot him through the 
head, it's better for him to be dead." The 
son replied: "A railway train has saved 
us all that grief and pain; old Dobbin got 
upon the track — a train came up and broke 
his back." "Great spoons!" the farmer 
cried, "I'll write a letter to the road to- 
night! I'll see if it can maim and slay 
fine-blooded stock, and get away! That 
hoss was sired by 'Norman Chimes,' that 
won the Derby seven times. I just was 
thinking, sitting there, that I would show 
him at the fair, and take in first or second 
prize, and now he's dead, dad bing my 
eyes! That hoss could gallop for a week, 
and then get down and trot a streak. I 
scarcely ever go to town but men with 
money run me down, and ask if Dobbin is 
for sale; when I say no, they fairly wail. 
And Dobbin's dead, my cherished steed! 
The doggone road that made him bleed 
will pay his value, if there's a law, or jus- 
tice east of Omaha! A thousand bones, 
and nothing less, will take the edge off my 
distress!" 



115 



Business Prose - Poems 



Dry Weather. 



JPLUVIUS turned not the crank 
that operates his water tank. He 
watched the baking earth below, 
and heard the people wail in woe, 
but not a bit did he relent ; he didn 't seem 
to care a cent. Old Vulcan heard the peo- 
ple 's wails, where he was making horse- 
shoe nails, and said: "Say, Pluve, turn 
on the drink! Those folks below are on 
the blink." But Pluvius replied: "Gee 
whiz! You'll teach me how to run my biz? 
I tell you, Vulc, those mortal men must 
have a lesson now and then. For many 
years I've sent them rain, and crops have 
grown on every plain. Prosperity was at 
their doors, where now the wolf of famine 
roars. And while I kept their planet wet, 
there was a carnival of debt. Men blew 
their substance, wild and free, as though it 
grew upon a tree. Their stock of luxuries 
enlarged, they bought fool things and had 
them charged. Men threw their money at 
the stars, and traded homes for chug-chug 
cars, and rioted at every chance, like 
drunken sailors at a dance. Ant so I 
cooked their blamed old earth, to teach 
them what good fortune's worth. When 
they have chewed on husks a while they'll 
learn to save their little pile." 



116 



Business Prose -Poems 



Killing Time. 



OH, it sort o' seems to me, as I face 
eternity, and consider how much 
work I have in view, that the big- 
gest earthly crime is this thing of 
killing time, which so many idle fellows 
seem to do. I am everymore in haste; I 
have not an hour to waste; I've a million 
things to do before I die; and the minutes 
as they flee are as precious unto me as the 
diamonds that an actress wants to buy. 
Now he comes, with nerve sublime, some 
tired bore who's killing time, and he has a 
grist of stories he would tell ; by my writ- 
ing desk he stops, and he gurgles and he 
yawps, till I take an ax and kill him, with 
a yell. People partial to this crime of an- 
nihilating time might be pardoned if 
they'd only kill their own; but they mur- 
der yours and mine — kill our moments as 
they shine, butcher minutes which are 
rightly ours alone. Which is why I say in 
rhyme that the men who kill our time 
should be banished to an island in the sea, 
where, among the leafy bow'rs they can 
kill a string of hours and not have a chance 
to bother you and me. 



117 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Discontented 



ALL the fiercest wails you hear, 
wails of discontent, come from 
men who, through the year, sel- 
dom earn a cent. Go wherever 
loafers rest, friendless and alone, and 
from every idle breast, there will rise a 
groan. Of the woes 'neath which they 
stand, they'll give catalogues; they will 
show you that the land travels to the dogs. 
They will name a lot of laws that the coun- 
try needs; they will wail and wag their 
jaws till your bosom bleeds; they will work 
their jaws and tongues, beating all the 
bands ; they will work their willing lungs — 
but they rest their hands. Folks who in 
the good old way toil with all their might, 
working out their stunts by day, going 
home at night, don't have time to wail and 
shriek o'er our downward race, don't have 
much desire to seek any wailing place. 
Toiling on, as best they can, on their little 
stage, treating fairly every man, earning 
all their wage, salting down some honest 
bones, for the day of rain — what to them 
are all the groans, why should they com- 
plain? There's a cure for all the ills which 
too long endure ; laws are merely nostrum 
pills, Work's the safest cure. 



118 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Breadwinner 



HE breaks his back and he breaks 
his heart as he toils away in the 
clanging mart. His griefs have 
whitened his scanty hair, and he 
is bent 'neath a load of care. He's an old 
man now, though in years he's young, and 
his feet are tired and his knees are sprung ; 
from the treadmill stunt he is never free, 
and his wife is planning a Yellow Tea. 
He 's sweating blood when the bills fall due, 
and he walks the floor all the long night 
through; and he has dreams of a sombre 
day when a sheriff's deputy comes his way. 
He greets the dawn with a sinking heart; 
he wears his clothes till they fall apart; 
no rest for him till he'll cross the ridge — 
and his wife is playing a game of bridge. 
To earn good money and see it go for so- 
cial frivols — ah, that is woe! To work 
like bees in our human hives, to gather 
honey for wastful wives ! To grind and 
worry and walk the street, with spavined 
bosoms and aching feet! It's hard to la- 
bor and sweat in vain — but then the mat- 
rons must entertain. 



119 



Business Prose -Poems 



Evenings at Home 



WHEN the day's work is done, 
with its trouble and care, with a 
little of joy and alot of despair, 
then it 's pleasant to go to your 
children and wife, and show them the lat- 
est in wrangling and strife. If you're 
mean as get out, then you'll find it a joy, 
to wear out your grouch on your wife or 
the boy, to suarl and to grumble, and rear 
up and whine, and show that you're boss 
of your figtree and vine. In thousands of 
homes there are tyrants who roar till the 
carpets curl up on the sitting-room floor, 
and thousands of women are waiting with 
dread for the homecoming hub and his 
masterful tread; and thousands of children 
turn pallid with fear, when they know that 
the neighborhood Bluebeard is near. The 
tyrant who bosses a woman around, and 
scares all the kids with his lion-like sound, 
would take to the brush if a large, healthy 
man expressed an ambition to fracture his 
can. And the meanest excuse that a tyrant 
can give for making his people regret that 
they live, is the timeworn excuse that his 
office affairs have ruined his nerves with 
their burden of cares ; he ought to go home 
as a groom to his bride, and let his old 
office and all its griefs slide. 



120 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Simple Life 



I'M tired of all the sordid cares that 
mark the city life; the noise, the pit- 
falls and the snares, the stratagems 
and strife; so back to Nature let me 
fly, and, by the woodland streams, with 
star reporters standing by, I'll weave my 
shining dreams. Afar from this, my urban 
home, I fain would go and dwell, beneath 
the lordly oaks to roam, and in the sylvan 
dell, where bird songs float upon the 
breeze, and blooms the woodland rose, and 
kodak men, among the trees, might catch 
my every pose. How sweet to breathe the 
purer air, that blows o'er fragrant lawns, 
to sleep at night without a care, and wake 
in golden dawns! To leave these build- 
ings, grim and tall, and wander off alone, 
where city editors might call me up by tele- 
phone. 



121 



Business Prose -Poems 

Retrospection 



WHEN I look over the musty past, 
that lies in eternal shade, re- 
grets come over me, thick and 
fast, regrets for the breaks I've 
made. I fooled away many golden years, 
as though I had years to burn, and out of 
their ashes I gather tears, but the joys do 
not return. Dame Fortune knocked at my 
humble door, with honors and fame and 
pelf ; but I turned in bed with a lazy snore, 
and told her to chase herself. I browsed 
around on the old dead grass, while 
t 'others were in the fold; I always loaded 
myself with brass, while others were after 
gold. And now, alas ! in the yellow leaf, 
I'm busted and down at heel, and I could 
let out a yell of grief that would make 
your blood congeal. But away from the 
moldy past I turn, to the future, glad and 
free, to the skies above, where the red 
stars burn — and you won't hear a howl 
from me ! 



122 



Business Prose -Poems 



Contentment 



THE weather, as you'll all agree, is 
most intensely hot ; and yet I would 
not sail the sea in an expensive 
yacht; for I can swipe a chunk of 
ice, and buy a palm-leaf fan, and they will 
keep me just as nice and cool as any man. 
My poor old legs all spavined are, from 
chasing through the town, but if you 
brought a motor car, I'd surely turn it 
down; if some time, weary of my cares, I 
wish to end them all, my humble home has 
cellar stairs, down which a man may fall. 
They say it's mighty fine to soar upon an 
aeroplane, away above the city's roar, and 
close to Charles's wain; but should it seem 
to me discreet, some day, to break my back, 
I'll walk a block and take a seat upon the 
railway track. My friends are going to 
the woods to camp and hunt and fish; to 
haunt the silent solitudes is some men's 
dearest wish ; but if a similar hermit plan 
to me should e'er look wise, I'll go and 
visit with the man who does not advertise. 
There is no sense in making tracks for 
Timbuctoo or Eome, when you are anxious 
to relax, for you can rest at home. There's 
nothing that men travel for, in parties or 
alone, that I can't order from the store at 
any hour, by phone. 



123 



Business Prose -Poems 



Weary Old Age. 



IT was a bent and ancient man who 
toiled with spade and pick, and down 
his haggard features ran the sweat- 
drops, rolling thick. And, as he 
toiled, his gasping sighs spoke darkly of 
despair; a hopeless look was in his 
eyes, a look of grief and care. He toiled, 
all heedless of the crowd that jour- 
neyed to and fro; "it is a shame," 
I said, aloud, "that Age should suffer 
so." He overheard me, and he said: "I 
earned this fate, in truth; when young 
I stained the landscape red; I was a Gilded 
Youth. I bought the merchandise that's 
wet, I fooled with games of chance; and 
now, in misery and sweat, I wear the name 
of Pance. I was a rounder and a sport, a 
spender and a blood, and now, when I loom 
up in court, my only name is Mud. I filled 
my years with gorgeous breaks, I thought 
my life a game; I threw my money to the 
drakes, and wallowed deep in shame. I 
used to hate the sissy-boys, those molly- 
coddle lads, who were content with milder 
joys, and salted down the scads ; and now 
I see them passing by, in opulence and 
ease, while I, too luckless e'en to die, am 
doing tasks like these. Sometimes, in rack- 
ing dreams I see the money that I burned ; 
but do not waste your tears on me — I'm 
getting what I earned!" 

124 



Business Prose - Poems 

Man's Errands 



TOILING up and down the street, in 
the wintry snow, in the summer's 
glare and heat, evermore we go; 
not an hour have we to waste, till 
the day is gone; in our frenzied, foolish 
haste, always pressing on. In our youth 
we're gray and bent; alway worried much, 
lest perchance an old red cent may escape 
our clutch; driving others to the wall, 
working tooth and nail, making plans — and 
after all, what do they avail? Rustling, 
hustling in the strife, adding to our pile; 
missing all there is in life, that is worth 
our while. We've forgotten how to play, 
since becoming men; bring us back the 
yesterday, make us boys again! Let's for- 
get a while the dimes, and the stocks and 
bonds ; let us go, as in old times, swimming 
in the ponds! Robbing nests of bumble- 
bees, for the honey heap, swiping apples 
from the trees, while the dog's asleep! 
Idle dream of idle mind ! Dreams like this 
are wrong; sentenced to the sordid grind, 
we must plod along; wearing out the city's 
pave, wearing out our souls ; ever onward, 
till the grave parts us from our rolls ! 



126 



Business Prose -Poems 



Soliloquy of Croesus. 



FOR fifty years I've gathered gold, 
and made it yield a hundred fold. 
I have controlled the world's sup- 
ply of vegetable whiskers dye; in 
every hamlet in the land where whiskers 
dye is in demand, I've had my agents, all 
alert, for any sort of tricks or dirt. I've 
ruined scores who'd sell or buy an inde- 
pendent whiskers dye; I've hounded deal- 
ers to the tomb, and filled their widow's 
homes with gloom. I've been a cast-iron 
Juggernaut, that rolled along, nor gave a 
thought to anything but nailing scads — the 
good old dollars of our dads. And now 
that I am worn and old, and days are sad 
and nights are cold, ghosts walk with me — 
a grisly crew — the ghosts of men I wrecked 
and slew. They wander with me, grim 
and stark; they gather round me in the 
dark; they point their fleshless hands, and 
cry: ^A camel through a needle's eye 
can quicker leap than you can rise, with all 
your plunder, to the skies!" I hear that 
weird refrain all day; and so I'll give my 
wealth away. I'm near the ending of the 
road, and so I'll hasten to unload; and 
then, perhaps, the last mileposts won't find 
me walking with tht ghosts ! 



126 



Business Prose -Poems 



Conscience 



I BELIEVE a fellow's conscience is a 
pretty faithful guide; if he follows 
where 'twould lead him, he won't 
stray so very wide. When I'm hust- 
ling for a living in the city's busy mart, 
I'm so full of schemes resplendent that 
the voice down in my heart doesn't have a 
chance to warn me and I do some doubtful 
trick, going to my shack at evening feeling 
sure that I'm a brick. When a man has 
nailed some roubles in a smooth and quiet 
way, he is full of triumph and he hands 
himself a large boquet. I have often felt 
exalted by my conquest of the plunk, till I 
shed my gaudy raiment, and lie down upon 
my bunk. Then my good old conscience 
prods me, in the silence and the dark, and 
it shows me that my doings are the doings 
of a shark. "It is better," says my con- 
science, holding down the judgment seat, 
"it is better to be honest, and barefooted 
walk the street, than to count a pile of 
dollars won by trickery or fraud; till 
you've squared your evil-doing I shall 
never cease to prod." So my conscience 
sits in judgment through the watches of 
the night, and in following its hunches I 
am sure I'm doing right. 



127 



Business Prose -Poems 



Richard Roe 



POOR old seedy Richard Roe ! There 
is naught he doesn't know of the 
kennel and the street and the hobo 's 
foul retreat. There is nothing he 
can't tell of the ante-mortem hell. Drift- 
ing on life's stormy wave, he's a wreck, 
unfit to save; drifting, drifting with the 
flow, where the shipwrecked mortals go. 
Richard is a trying sight; once his counte- 
nance was white, but it's rusty with the 
grime of an elder, ancient time; and his 
rags are passing foul, and he has a wolfish 
jowl; and his story's trite and stale, as he 
paces in the jail; he's completely out of 
chink — and it's saddening to think that this 
effigy defiled, must have been one day a 
child ! It is saddening to know that above 
this Richard Roe, with his face by evil 
seamed, once a mother bent and dreamed! 
Prayed and dreamed — above that face — 
that he'd take an honored place, in this 
great, wide world of men — truly, she was 
dreaming then ! There are many Richard 
Roes, drifting — whither no one knows — 
where life's billows sweep and swing; and 
it seems a blessed thing that so many moth- 
ers die, ere they see the wrecks drift by ! 



128 



Business Prose- Poems 



The Age of Invention 



NO wonder that one 's spirit freezes ! 
They're always finding new dis- 
eases to rob us of our breath; 
each day the scientists affright 
us with something new that ends with 
"itis," and scares us half to death. In 
olden times the ills were simple; they 
ranged from jaundice to a pimple; and' 
simple was the dope; the doctor came, as 
smooth as satin, and spoke some words in 
bughouse Latin, and bade us keep up hope. 
He'd prop us up and mildly jolt us by put- 
ting on a linseed poultice, or he would 
feed us pills; and then he'd soak us for a 
dollar, which maddened us until we'd hol- 
ler, and thus forget our ills. In those old 
days, in mem'ry cherished, we seldom of 
a sickness perished; we'd live till bent and 
gray; as old, old men we'd drool and 
drivel, until like Autumn leaves we'd 
shrivel, and like them blow away. But 
now, when we are feeling dizzy, the learned 
physicians all get busy, and stand around 
our bunk, and feel our pulse, and prod and 
smite us. and say we have some blamed 
old "itis;" all itises are punk. Then one 
of them his weapon greases, and saws us 
into three-inch pieces, regardless of our 
squeals; he takes us all apart, and pokes 
us, and sews us up again, and soaks us for 
seven hundred wheels. 



129 



Business Prose -Poems 



In the Garden. 



MY garden is sickly, and littered 
with wrecks; the beans wilted 
quickly, and passed in their 
checks. The sight, it is sad- 
dish; the cabbage is dead; the onion and 
radish lie cold in their bed. The night 
zephyrs whistle o'er wreck and decay, and 
only the thistle is blooming today. My 
strenuous labors this garden has known, 
wliile indolent neighbors looked on with a 
groan. I said : " I'll be eating fine succu- 
lent sass, while those men are treating 
their stomachs to grass." They said: 
" You may hoe, sir, and dig till you're sore, 
but we from the grocer will purchase our 
store." I slugged and lambasted the weeds 
with a hoe; my work was all wasted, and 
I'm full of woe. My garden is dreary as 
Sidon or Tyre, and oh, I am weary, while 
twanging my lyre! And this is the moral 
for others who fail to cultivate sorrel and 
onions and kale: A man needs some 
training his task to pursue, or he'll be com- 
plaining, disgusted and blue. 



130 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Secret of Health. 



MY health is out of sight; I'm al- 
ways feeling right ; with joyous 
spiels I kick my heels, and dance 
by day and night. I take no pale 
green pills for any kind of ills ; and so es- 
cape a wreath of crape and sidestep doctor's 
bills. I shun the faddist 's talk ; I eat no grat- 
ed chalk, I hit no can of liquid bran or shred- 
ded cabbage stalk. I dodge the patent 
foods and predigested goods, and oatmeal 
cakes and other fakes of Dr. Hutchiwoods. 
My stomach is my friend, and will be to 
the end; it treats me fair and I'll be 
square, and no junk to it send. Don't feed 
your stomach hay, don't fill it full of whey, 
but feed it steaks and frosted cakes — your 
appetite obey. Ah me, I'd rather die than 
give up raisin pie! And all the schemes 
the doctor dreams I don't intend to try. 
The good old ancient seers ! They lived 
eight hundred years! They used to eat all 
kinds of meat and hash and roastin' ears! 



131 



Business Prose -Poems 



Ben Davis Apples 



THE Ben Davis apple is lovely in 
hue, it seems to invite you to step 
up and chew. It's pretty and 
shapely, its profile is fine — but I do 
not long for Ben Davis in mine. To eat a 
Ben Davis is wasting your time; it tastes 
like a mattress and drives you to crime. 
I ate a Ben Davis when I was quite young, 
and now I recall it whenever I'm stung. It 
taught me a lesson, a lesson I prize, it 
sharpened my wolf -teeth and opened my 
eyes. And now when a faker comes up to 
my door, to sell me some stock in a mine 
full of ore, I think of Ben Davis, and say 
to him "Nix," and tell him to vanish and 
pelt him with bricks. And when I en- 
counter an oily-tongued jay, too sweet and 
too gracious for man made of clay, profes- 
sing affection approaching to love, I think 
of Ben Davis, and give him a shove. I read 
in the magazine pages of men who'd make 
us all wealthy, again and again; they're 
brokers or dealers in moonshine and mist 
— just send them two bucks and they'll 
mail you a list! Their glittering spiels 
don't appeal to my wits; I think of Ben 
Davis, and throw a few fits. 



132 



Business Prose ■ Poems 



Good Advice 



YOU are wasting your lives! Like 
the bees in their hives you work 
for the large silver wheel; and 
you stick to the job till your nerves 
are a-throb, and life is run down at the 
heel. With moiling have done! Get out 
in the sun and take from Dame Nature a 
fall ; if your future seems dark, chase your- 
self to the park, and look at the fellows 
play ball. I used to be tied to a desk, 
weary-eyed and longed for release from 
life's ills; I anchored my hope to the horse 
doctor's dope, and filled up my inwards 
with pills. Then a friend came along — 
he was forceful and strong, and he carried 
me off, grouch and all, and I sat on a board 
and I howled and I roared as the boys on 
the diamond played ball. Now I'd think it 
a shame if I should miss a game and I 
go at my labors with vim; and my liver's 
all right, and my nerves are a sight, and 
the dope is no more in the swim. When 
you're feeling too old and all covered with 
mold, and your picture seems turned to the 
wall, hire a livery shark and go out to the 
park, and look at the fellows play ball ! 



133 



Business Pro s" e - Poems 



As to Failure 



THE other day a damsel fair, whose 
name I've laid aside, somewhere, 
procured a gun, to death inclined, 
and tried to end the beastly grind. 
She left a note in which she said she'd be 
a whole lot better dead. "I've failed at 
everything," she wrote; "misfortune 
early got my goat. I've written drama, 
tale and play, but publishers most always 
say, ' Oh, maiden, take your blooming junk, 
and with it line your tourist's trunk!' I've 
tried and tried, and can't catch on, my 
hopes are dead, my watch in pawn; but 
I have got a loaded gun, and so good-bye 
to every one ! ' ' She tried to work the mag- 
azines, but never thought of dishing beans 
in some hash joint, to hungry men; she 
labored with her fountain pen producing 
odes that no one read, but never thought 
of baking bread. And tens of thousands 
like this maid are going hungry, cold and 
frayed, and saying that the world's a fake, 
and life a big three-cornered ache, be- 
cause they will not shed their coats and get 
right down to work like goats. It's better 
to politely starve than have a good big 
roast to carve that's earned by sweating 
in the sun ; and hence the farewell and the 
gun. 



134 



Business Prose -Poems 



Bach to the Farm 



LET us go back to the farm, my 
friend, back where the scents of the 
flowers ascend ! We are both tired 
of the load of care, here in the town 
with its noise and glare! Let us go back 
to the farm, I say, wrestling around in a 
mow of hay. There we shall rise ere the 
break of dawn, pulling our frozen gar- 
ments on ; there we may wash at the horse's 
trough, trying to scour half the hayseed 
off. Let us, my friend, of the farm life 
think! Teaching the bone-headed calves 
to drink, carrying swill to a million sows, 
squeezing the milk from a million cows, 
crawling around 'neath the cattle shed, 
hunting for eggs that are old and dead! 
Let us go back to the farm, by James! 
Weary are we of these city games ! Weary 
of smoking Key West cigars, weary of 
riding in motor cars, tired of the bath and 
the linen shirt, longing for cockleburs, pigs 
and dirt. Let us go back to the farm, by 
jings! Back where the riotous rooster 
sings ! 



135 



Business Prose- Poems 



The Rule of Life 



A MOUNTAIN of books have been 
written, to show us the paths we 
should tread, and we have been 
laden with precepts, by sages 
both living and dead ; and most of the wis- 
dom is useless, for all that a man needs to 
do, is just to be gentle and true, lad, just 
to be gentle and true. The name of the 
teachers is legion who 'd point out the road 
to success; they'd have us believe that the 
journey, unguided, is full of distress; the 
secret, however, is simple, and easy to car- 
ry in mind; it's just to be honest and kind, 
lad, just to be honest and kind. I don't 
care a cent for the theories and creeds that 
the wise men expound ; for all of the words 
that are thundered are merely a wind and 
a sound; the logic of life is so simple, it 
leaves all the dogmas behind; it's just to be 
honest and kind, lad, just to be honest and 
kind. 



136 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Days of Youth 



LET us labor in the morning, for 
'twill soon be afternoon; let us 
hustle in the vineyard, for the night 
is coming soon, when the old and 
weary dotards sit beside the fire and croon 
— and time is marching on. Let's improve 
the golden moments that cavort upon their 
way; there'll be time for idle dreaming in 
old age's wintry day; while the morn of 
life is with us let us put up lots of hay, 
for time is marching on. I have seen a 
county poorhouse where the paupers sighed 
and wept, for the wasted years behind 
them, when high carnival they kept, when 
they held their late carousal while the 
weary toilers slept, and time is marching 
on. I have seen dead people planted with- 
out sign of tears or ruth ; they were hustled 
to the boneyard like a box of junk, in 
sooth; and they always were the people 
who had fooled away their youth; and 
time is marching on. Ah, in youth the gold- 
en moments seem a boundless, endless 
store, and we waste them as the children 
waste the pebbles on the shore! One by 
one the moments leave us, and they come 
to us no more, and time is marching on ! 



137 



Business Prose- P o ems 

The Sphere of Genius. 



THE sun was sinking in the west — 
it seemed to do that stunt, at least ; 
I sometimes think it would be best 
if it would set once in the east. 
I'm weary of the changeless scheme on 
which the solar system runs; the same old 
moon looks down and beams, the same old 
stars, the same old suns. I'm in a plain- 
tive mood today; a sheriff's writ is in my 
hand ; I could not make my business pay — 
I could not run a peanut stand. My heart 
with deep resentment throbs against this 
weary world of lies. I wasn't built for 
trifling jobs — the solar system is my size. 
Or I could run the government, which now 
is run by statesmen daft; I'd make Champ 
Clark look like one cent, and show some 
things to old Bill Taft. To manage armies 
in the field, to deal in crowns and build up 
thrones, the sceptre of a king to wield — 
for that my lofty spirit hones. I'm ham- 
pered by this world's fool laws, which 
make me serve, who would command; and 
people jeer at me because I couldn't run a 
peanut stand. 



138 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Dissatisfied Clerk 



YOUNG Alexander Jimpson Jopp 
was working in a hardware shop, 
and as he wrapped up iron rails, 
and anvils, bolts and kegs of nails, 
and knives and screws and pigs of lead, he 
often to his fellows said: "This labor 
makes me tired, by jings ! For I was built 
for higher things. I'm fitted to adorn the 
bench instead of selling monkey-wrench, 
and spade and hoe and tailor's geese, and 
evil-smelling axle grease." He loathed 
the work he had to do, and cussed it till the 
air was blue. Young Richard Henry 
James Kerfiopp was also working in that 
shop; he carried anvils all the day, and as 
he toiled he used to say: "There may be 
better jobs than this, imparting more of 
ease and bliss, but I will do my best, and 
strive, to show the boss that I'm alive; I 
may be built for higher spheres, but I won't 
wet the shop with tears. If those blamed 
spheres are hunting me, they'll find me 
busy as a bee." Young Alexander Jimp- 
son Jopp still sweats around that hard- 
ware shop, and carries anchors to and fro, 
and draws a paltry bunch of dough, while 
Richard Henry sits in state, wears hard- 
boiled shirts and pays the freight. 



139 



B u s i n'c ss Prose-Poems 



The Two Parents. 



1HAVE heard Cap Jimpson say to his 
son: "Come hither, Jay, I'd be 
greatly pleased if you sundry little 
chores would do. You might paint 
the cistern pump, take those tin cans to 
the dump, cut in stove lengths yonder log, 
put a flynet on the dog. I am pleased to 
see you, lad, always prompt to help your 
dad, and a bone I'll hand you down when 
the circus comes to town." Then the 
blithe lad does his stunt with a gay and 
smiling front. I have heard Pap Bilkins 
cry to his son : ' ' Get busy, Guy ! Paint the 
kitchen roof with tar, worthless loafer 
that you are! You don't earn your room 
and keep, all you do is eat and sleep ! When 
I was your age, you oaf, not a minute did 
I loaf ! Stir your stumps, now, pretty quick, 
or I'll lam you with this stick!" To his 
task goes youthful Guy, with rebellion in 
his eye. Who will reach success some day, 
gloomy Guy or joyous Jay? If they win or 
lose the game, whose the credit, whose the 
blame? 



140 



Business Prose -Poems 

Discouraging. 



I ORDERED some potatoes down at 
the grocer's store; the price was 
something awful — I sat me down and 
swore. The grocer man informs me 
the price will stay up there; the crop is 
quite a failure, 'round here and every- 
where. And so I see I'll have to subsist 
on beans and crusts; and this it is that 
grinds me — I cannot blame the trusts. If 
I could blame Pierp Morgan, and roast old 
Guggenheim, I'd do without potatoes and 
have a bully time. The crop has been a 
failure because the weather's dry, and so 
the Wall Street barons can prove an alibi. 
Now I must eat the pumpkin and chew the 
moldy prune, and know the robber tariff, 
like Wall Street, is immune. No one will 
pay attention if I should raise a fuss, and 
so my heart is broken — there's no one I 
can cuss. I've pondered till I'm weary, 
and no way can I see to charge the 'tater 
shortage to iron-souled John D. If I 
could only work it to make John D. the 
goat, I'd surely run for office and ask you 
for your vote. 



141 



Business Prose- Poems 



Behind the Counter 



MARY clerked in Whimple's store, 
and her heart was sick and sore, 
for poor Mary wasn't strong, 
and the hours were beastly long, 
and her pay was pretty slim, and the boss 
was sour and grim. Mary's nerves were 
worn to shreds, selling yarns and pins and 
threads. And one day a haughty dame to 
this salesgirl's counter came, wanting stuff 
to make a gown; and she made the girl 
hand down fifty tons or so of cloth; and 
she grew exceeding wroth 'cause the prices 
were too high; and she glared with fiery 
eye at the weary girl and said: "Hustle! 
try to earn your bread! Bring me half 
a carload more of the dress goods in your 
store ! On those highest shelves I see fab- 
rics that look good to me!" Then poor 
Mary, worn and weak, soaked that woman 
on the cheek; slugged her three times on 
the nose with a bolt of linen clothes, hit 
her roundly with a chair, pushed her down 
the cellar stair. In the court the case was 
tried, and poor Mary, weary-eyed, told her 
simple tale with tears, thinking she would 
get ten years. But the jurors, honest men, 
did not send her to the pen. "She's not 
guilty!" they all cried, and she's now the 
foreman's bride. 



142 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Moneyless Man. 



THE poets have sung in a harrowing 
strain of the moneyless man and 
his sorrow and pain. He gets the 
ice pitcher wherever he goes — no 
welcome for him, no relief for his woes! 
He is kicked from hotels by the janitor's 
feet, policemen begrudge him the use of 
the street, he's chased from the alleys as 
though but a dog, and turned from the 
doors of the swell synagogue; he must 
drag out his days in the best way he can — 
the world has no use for the moneyless 
man. Supposing it's true, why should cuss 
words be hurled like bricks at the poor old 
long-suffering world? In ninety-nine cases 
or more out of ten, the blame should be 
placed on the moneyless men; the lazy, the 
shiftless, when busted and wrecked, how 
much from the world are they due to ex- 
pect? And why should industrious citi- 
zens give to loafers infesting the 
towns where they live? When bit- 
ter misfortune comes down on a guy 
who's shown that he's honest and 
willing to try, the world loosens up in a 
praiseworthy way, and does what it can 
for that suffering jay. But most of the 
hollow-eyed moneyless men have bunkoed 
this planet again and again. I don't blame 
the world that it's likely to pan on the 
chestnutty spiel of the moneyless man. 



143 



Business Prose - Poems 



The Great Remedy 



FOR those whose hearts are sick with 
care, for those who consort with 
despair, for those who work, for 
those who weep, there is no dope 
that equals sleep. The kind of sleep we 
used to know, when we were children, long 
ago, the kind of sleep that nature brings, 
wherein we hear seraphic wings, the kind 
of sleep that closed our eyes when soothed 
by mother's lullabys — ah, that's the balm 
for heart and brain, the cure for every 
mortal pain ! One night of sleep Is worth 
a ton of any drug beneath the sun. One 
night of sleep will do more good than all 
the doctors ever could. One night of sleep, 
when tired and blue, will fix you up as good 
as new. If you'd enjoy this noble balm, 
your soul must be serene and calm, and 
if that calmness you'd attain, your life 
should be without a stain. If, when 
you seek your downy bed, your con- 
science prods you in the head, recalling ac- 
tions mean and base, your falsehoods in 
the market place, the evil things that you 
have wrought since last you occupied that 
cot, then sleep will vanish, shedding tears ; 
the night will seem a hundred years. 



144 



Business Prose-Poems 

Before and After. 

IT is really rather funny how the man 
who's burning money finds a legion 
of admirers any place that he may 
stray. Everything he says is witty; 
all the Johnnies in the city gather round 
him to adore him while there's wealth to 
throw away. When he grows exceeding 
frisky in the gilded home of whisky, e'en 
the barkeeps make confession that he has 
a wealth of charms; and the peelers, evi- 
dently, love him, for they treat him gent- 
ly, when his feet become entangled and he 
falls into their arms. 0, the world is soft 
and tender to the lavish money spender 
and he thinks that people love him for his 
merits and his face; but when all his 
wealth is melted, he is hustled, he is pelted, 
and the barkeeps calmly kick him from 
the portals of their place. And the people 
who were smirking when his money he was 
jerking, call him names that hurt his feel- 
ings when he seeks a helping hand ; and the 
haughty cops surround him, draw their 
little clubs and pound him, load him in the 
hurry wagon, and he's fined to beat the 
band. All the friends you gain by blowing 
money where the booze is flowing are not 
worth a cent a dozen — they're not worth 
the half of that; they will shake you when 
you're busted and will turn away dis- 
gusted when, to buy a little fodder, you at- 
tpmpt to pass the hat. 

145 



Business Prose- Poems 



The Workers. 



THE carpenter is driving some nails 
into a plank; the ostler's blithely 
striving to clean a charger's shank ; 
the baseball artist pitches, the 
farmer plows for riches, the hired man's 
digging ditches, or toiling at a crank. The 
sailor ties his bow-knots and shins up tarry 
ropes; the baker cooks his doughnuts, the 
grocer sells his soaps; some chaps are 
busy clerking, or engine levers jerking, 
and other men are working, producing 
white men's hopes. I look upon my neigh- 
bors, and have new faith in man ; each busy 
at his labors, and doing what he can; to be 
forever doing, achieving and pursuing, 
a-sawing wood and hewing — that is the 
only plan. But now the weird spellbinder 
appears upon the scene; he gnashes tusk 
and grinder with fierce and awful mien ; he 
makes the toilers weary of work that once 
seemed cheery; he springs some foolish 
theory that rankles in his bean. The talk- 
ers, the talkers, who rant and pirouette ! 
Discouragers and mockers of all who toil 
and sweat! They keep the welkin dented, 
and all their noise is vented to make men 
discontented and sore, already yet! 



146 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Wise Old Man. 



THE old man sits in his figtree's 
shade, and fills himself with pink 
lemonade, and he smokes his pipe 
as he glances o'er the thrilling 
facts of the baseball score. He has no 
grief and he has no care, and he just leans 
back in his rocking chair, and views the 
world with a cheerful smile, for his lar- 
der's full, and he has his pile. The plan 
he followed you will indorse ! He used to 
work like a bald-faced horse; he swung the 
ax and he plied the spade, and he knuckled 
down at the blacksmith's trade; wherever 
he worked, in the field or town, a part of 
his roubles he salted down. He saw the 
folly of spendthrift men, and took to the 
bank a large brass yen; they burned their 
money as though with fire; he took to the 
bank a big tin lire. And now he sits in his 
figtree's shade and eats ice cream with a 
wooden spade, and people smile as they 
look at him; he's fat and sassy and full of 
vim. And where are the fellows who drew 
their wage and blew it in, in that bygone 
age? Do they lean back in their rocking 
chairs, serene and happy and free from 
cares? Have they their figtrees and stuff 
to eat 1 ? Oh, ask the copper who walks your 
beat. 



147 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Healer. 



AEE you full of grief, my neighbor, 
full of grief and woe ? Shed your 
raiment, then, and labor, and your 
cares will go. Is your bosom torn 
asunder, that you thus repine? Friends 
of mine who work like thunder haven't 
time to whine. Idlers stand about me 
weeping, men with empty hands; and 
the happy men are reaping o'er the fertile 
lands. Life's a thing of cruel rigor for 
the shiftless knaves; kind for men who 
work with vigor, not as galley slaves. Fool- 
ish your complaint and wailing, foolish 
are your tears; work's the cure for all 
your ailing, and your griefs and fears. 
Work at anvil or at throttle, saw your pile 
of wood! Never brought you in a bottle 
remedy so good ! Work, on land or on the 
ocean, go and cut some grass ! Never was 
there pill or potion that was in work's 
class! Work's the solace for the mortal 
by life's ills distraught; it will make him 
sing and chortle, it will hit the spot! Be 
you statesman, soldier, bard or tiller of 
the soil, if you're tired of work, work 
harder ! Nothing heals like toil ! 



148 



Business Prose -Poems 



Job's Patience. 



MY friend the preacher tells a 
tale about a man who lived in 
Uz. ''The ills he knew would 
make you pale; misfortunes 
used to round him buzz," so says my 
friend the preacher man, who shudders as 
he goes ahead; "he had big boils upon his 
can, and all his cows and hogs were dead. 
The way he suffered was a sin, and oft he 
wished he was on ice, and bores came up 
to rub it in by handing him some good ad- 
vice. You snort around and kick and wail 
when little things seem out of plumb, yet 
this man's patience didn't fail when all 
the world was on the bum. He sat around 
his ruined home, and put fresh flaxseed on 
his boils, or scraped them with a curry- 
comb, or painted them with healing oils; 
he lay upon his humble couch and watched 
misfortunes come like rain; and yet he 
never was a grouch; he didn't cuss things 
or complain." "0, man," my friend the 
preacher cries, "it makes me tired to hear 
you whine ! It does, dot rot my blooming 
eyes, when all the world is gay and fine ! ' ' 
"That chap in Uz," I humbly say, "you 
think the most ill used of men, and yet he 
was a lucky jay — he never used a fountain 
pen." 



149 



Business Prose- Poems 



Money and Lives. 



1MET the man who owns the mill, joy 
riding with a coachful, and stopped 
his motor on the hill, and said to 
him, reproachful: "A hundred 
damsels weave and spin, for you, for pal- 
try wages ; and will they all be fastened in 
when fire around them rages V "I guess, ' ' 
he said, in accents hurt, "I guess they will 
be, sonny; for human lives are cheap as 
dirt, but fire escapes cost money. The peo- 
ple do not realize the burden rich men 
carry ; the way my hard-earned money flies 
would paralyze Old Harry. My auto al- 
ways needs repairs, my yacht is always 
yawning for coats of paint or easy chairs 
or miles of silken awning. To talk of fire 
escapes for mills is really rather funny, 
for human lives are cheap as pills, but fire 
escapes cost money. My bill for wines 
alone, my friend, would scare you into 
trances, and there are suppers without 
end, and forty kinds of dances. A trip to 
Europe every year requires a lot of boodle, 
and gems I bring to loved ones here all 
cost like Yankee Doodle. I cannot throw 
my scads away on mill equipment, sonny; 
for human lives are cheap as hay, but fire 
escapes cost money." 



150 



Business Prose-Poems 



Lady Police. 



METHINKS I've been arrested 
about a thousand times, by peel- 
ers pigeon-chested, for divers 
grades of crimes; and often it 
has pained me to note their lack of taste; 
sometimes they nearly brained me, by giv- 
ing me a paste with lignum-vitse billy, or 
No. 14 shoe; when they have knocked you 
silly, what can a mortal do? They will not 
brook discussion, your tears are no avail; 
they seem intent on rushin' your system 
into jail. And now they say the ladies de- 
sire policemen's beats; the Myrtles and 
the Sadies would guard the city streets. It 
is a scheme that cheers me, a plan as 
smooth as pearls! The whiskered copper 
queers me — produce the peeler girls ! Soon 
may, with ribboned billy, sweet Jane her 
stunt begin, and nab your little Willie, and 
gently run him in! I've worn out all sen- 
sation, and life is but a bore ; but this new 
innovation makes me sit up some more. 
Ah me, to be arrested by lovely girls in 
blue, bestarred and fully vested with power 
so to do! The lady cops — we need 'em! 
I'd rather be run in than have the boon of 
freedom, when once the girls begin! 



151 



Business Prose- Poems 



Mortal Plans. 



THE wise man said, one summer 
day : ' ' Now eggs are cheap, for all 
hens lay, and so I'll buy a million 
kegs of these absurdly low priced 
eggs, and store them till the blizzards 
come, when henfruit works are out of plum, 
and then I'll bring them from my store, and 
clear a ton of wealth, or more." And so 
he leased a building tall, and filled it up, 
from wall to wall, with oodles of refresh- 
ing eggs, in crates, in boxes and in kegs. 
And then he waited for the time of shriek- 
ing gales and snow and rime, and planned 
a trip to Rome and Cork, with sundry 
nights off in New York. The winter came 
along full soon, but 'twas a running mate 
for June ; the whizzing tempest didn't whiz, 
the raging blizzard failed to bliz; the hens 
were sure the month was May, and each 
laid seven eggs a day. The man of eggs 
soon went insane ; which shows that human 
plans are vain. It also seems good evi- 
dence that hens have mighty little sense. 



152 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Two Toilers. 



TWO men pass my cottage door, on 
their way to do their work; one 
goes to a beeswax store, t'other is 
a sauerkraut clerk. One goes 
slouching on his way, sour of face and sad 
of eye; he will soldier all the day, count 
the hours as they drag by. So he jour- 
neys down the street, on his way to earn 
the mon, and he lifts his sluggish feet just 
as though they weighed a ton. Toil to 
him's a thing of tears, making him with 
anguish throb; when he's labored twenty 
years he will hold the same old job. T 'other 
man goes prancing by with a step that's 
bold and free; there is ardor in his eye, 
and he whistles "Nancy Lee." He goes 
gaily to his task, not in bitterness and 
tears, and in fortune's smiles he'll bask as 
he travels down the years. For the gods 
adore the man who will work with might 
and main; and the shiftless pilgrim's plan 
void of virtue is and vain. 



153 



Business Prose- Poems 



In the Boneyard 



SOME blamed good fellows lie asleep 
down yonder where the tall grass 
waves, but no one ever comes to 
weep, or plant rosebushes on their 
graves. They calmly rest in paupers' beds, 
and wait the judgment, in a row, no shin- 
ing tombstones o'er their heads, no requi- 
em but the winds that blow. They were 
the shiftless, trifling lads, upon a weary 
world turned loose; they never learned to 
nail the scads and salt them down for win- 
ter use. It's pretty tough that some must 
sleep in unmarked, bargain counter graves, 
because their plunks they cannot keep ; the 
honor's for the man who saves. A man 
whose eyes are wide apart, whose hands 
are reaching in his jeans, who listens rather 
to his heart than to the teachings of his 
brains, is apt to join the pauper crowd, and 
perish after many knocks, and wear a 
cheap, old-fashioned shroud, and slumber 
in a 'misfit box. Whereas, if he is shrewd 
and wise, with lips that close up like a 
hasp, and little space between the eyes, and 
hands that hang to what they grasp, his 
death will fill the town with gloom, and 
mourners will bewail the day, and he will 
have a corking tomb in which to loaf the 
years away. 



154 



Business Prosc-Pocms 



A Few Don'ts 



DON'T talk about the prize you'll 
win, or how you will pursue it, 
for boasts are like the clank of tin ; 
don't talk — get down and do it. 
Don't say you'll cut the habits out, that 
make your friends uneasy; just turn your 
conduct face about — for talk is cheap and 
wheezy. About your seedy clothes don't 
talk, and say you'll soon be tony; go get 
the sort of duds that knock — for promises 
are phoney. Don't make some wild and 
foolish break and then beg people's par- 
don; such conduct makes them fairly ache 
to plant you in the garden. Don't try to 
tell a funny tale to friends who may be 
busy, or they will say you'd be in jail if 
peelers were not dizzy. Don't talk about 
your own concerns to one who's in a hurry; 
he doesn't care three tinkers' derns about 
your woe and worry. Don't blow a damp, 
hang-over breath into your neighbors' 
faces, or they will wish that Colonel Death 
would take you where his place is. Don't 
talk, unless the thing you'd say is truly 
worth the trouble; for work's the stuff 
that puts up hay, and talk is but a bubble. 



155 



Business Prose-Poems 
"Grimes' Goldens." 



WHERE is the stately Mr. Grimes, 
the noblest man of modern 
times, whose apple soothes and 
pleases? He surely is a crack- 
er jack ; I 'd like to pat him on the back, and 
hold him on my kneeses. I'd like to fold 
him to my breast, and say: "Your apple 
is the best that ever grew and ripened; I 
think so much of you that I would share 
with you my pumpkin pie, my taxes or my 
stipend." let the good old name of 
Grimes be sounded by the evening chimes, 
and blazoned on the hoarding; his apple 
drives dull care away, and makes each 
heart seem light and gay, down here where 
I am boarding. let the noble name of 
Grimes be handed down to future times, 
embalmed in song and story; his apple 
cheers, inspires and thrills, incites to splen- 
did deeds, and fills our boarding house 
with glory. 'Twould be the foulest of all 
crimes if nevermore the name of Grimes 
should be on earth paraded; for he has 
brought a new delight — an apple that the 
gods would bite — and has old Burbank 
faded. Grimes, I lack the poet's 
speech, or I would tell you what a peach 
you are, you dear old lummix! You've 
poured some balm upon our smarts ; you've 
surely reached the people's hearts, and 
reached them through their stom achs ! 

156 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Bullied Witness 



AT morn I saw him, for the court- 
house bound, and glad smiles 
chased his jovial mug around; 
chipper was he, and blithe and 
gay and bold, kicking his heels like any two- 
year-old. At eve I saw him on his home- 
ward way, broken with grief, and bent and 
worn and gray, laying the dust with tears 
that fairly steamed, and when I spoke he 
jumped ten yards and screamed. Through 
the long day, within the courthouse dim, 
lawyers had nagged and clawed and badg- 
ered him, asking him things and scorning 
his reply, proving that truth is but a futile 
lie; shaking their fists beneath his pallid 
nose, pawing the air and stamping on his 
toes. Aptly they showed, with eloquence 
unloosed, that he had robbed a widow's 
chicken roost; hence it was plain that all 
his evidence hadn't the worth of twenty 
phoney cents. And so that witness took 
his journey home ; fear held his heart, and 
bats were in his dome; when from the 
peep-hole of his padded cell, he sees a 
lawyer, you may hear him yell. 



157 



Business Prose -Poems 



Worth a Million. 



I'D fain be so successful that people, 
when I pass, will say: "He's worth 
a million — he puts up lots of grass!" 
The men who 're worth a million find 
people bowing low, and there are smiles 
and greetings wherever they may go. I'd 
fain be worth a million, and so I'll do my 
best, to help along the luckless, and com- 
fort the distressed ; some portion of my in- 
come I'll hand out to the poor, and keep 
the wolf from howling at some old wom- 
an's door. I'll utter no complainings, or 
moans or useless whines, but pack around 
the village a mug that fairly shines. I'll 
stand up strong for virtue — the good old 
rugged sort; I don't believe in making an 
angel of a sport; I don't believe in virtue 
so horribly severe it frowns on all the fol- 
lies of this old dizzy sphere. I'll boost 
my native village until my senses reel; I'll 
keep my shoulders ready to put them to 
the wheel; I'll knock all day on knocking, 
and kick the kickers down, and try to be 
an asset in this three-cornered town. And 
then I'll hear a murmur from 'preciative 
folk: "That man is worth a million, al- 
though he's going broke!" 



158 



Business Prose -Poems 



Harvest Home 



OUT in the country the farmers are 
singing, out in the fields where 
the corn's growing rank, soon in 
their autos they'll come to town, 
bringing oodles of money to put in the 
bank. Shocked is the wheat, and the peo- 
ple who buy it also are shocked at the price 
they must pay ; prices of produce stir peo- 
ple to riot — everything's soaring, from but- 
ter to hay. Out in the country the milk- 
cow feels classy, prancing around on her 
long brindled legs; out in the country the 
hen's growing sassy, knowing the price 
that is placed on her eggs. Where is the 
farmer of old, who was ploddin' nearer 
the poorhouse whenever hestepp'd? Where 
is the tiller and toiler downtrodden, over 
whose woes we have frequently wept? 
Where is that husbandman, painfully drag- 
gin' out an existence of sorrow and debt? 
Coming to town in his gasoline wagon, 
loaded with all kinds of bullion, you bet! 
Out in the country the prospect's beguil- 
ing, music and laughter are heard on the 
breeze ; women are singing, their husbands 
are smiling — money is growing on bushes 
and trees ! 



159 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Tired Optimist. 



I SAID : "I'll sing a cheery song, and 
keep it up the whole day long; 
though every hour may troubles 
bring, I'll drive them off, and sing, 
and sing!" And so I warbled as I went, 
till neighbors came, in discontent, and 
cried : ' ' For heaven 's sake, let up ! You 're 
squawking like a poisoned pup, until the 
babies cannot sleep, and mothersgrit their 
teeth and weep. Your voice is like a 
guinea hen's; then why disturb these quiet 
glens, and shatter all the window glass, 
and scare the horses as they pass? The 
modest workman does his chores, and 
never yells, and never roars; he does not 
whinny like a shoat, or bellow like an 
angry goat ; he does not like a rooster crow, 
and fill the neighborhood with woe. ' ' And 
still I sing my joyous lay, while bricks and 
boots and bales of hay, and long-dead cats, 
and loaves of bread, and fossil bones whiz 
past my head. 



160 



Business Prose-Poems 



Success 



A TALL and pompous citizen pur- 
sues his stately way. "That man 
is worth five million bucks," we 
hear admirers say; and folks sa- 
lute him as he goes, and wear the servile 
smile, and while he lingers in their view, 
they talk about his pile. It's good to have 
five million bucks, or half a million less, 
but being wealthy doesn't mean that you 
are a success. Of all the gifts the gods be- 
stow, the commonest, I wot, is that of rak- 
ing in the scads till friction makes them 
hot. There is no cross roads in the land 
but has its plutocrat, some village Astor- 
bilt who hoards, and grows exceeding fat; 
but villages are far between, to judge from 
late returns, which breed a future Millet 
or a follower of Burns. It's good to have 
five million bucks, if they're not counter- 
feit; it's nice to chase yourself around, 
and feel that you are It; but if you have 
no other claim to confidence and love, the 
jumping-off place you should seek, and 
give yourself a shove. I'd rather keep 
a-plugging on, with little to disburse, and 
journey to the boneyard in the county poor 
farm's hearse, and have folks say I tried 
my best to do my little part, than leave a 
lot of rocks behind, and not a mourning 
heart. 



161 



Business Prose ■ Poems 



Getting a Habit 



WHEN I was but a little lad I used 
to watch the men fill up their 
trusty briar pipes, and smoke, 
and smoke again. "Man's high- 
est aim," I thought, "is just to make to- 
bacco burn;" and so I swiped an old clay 
pipe, and started* in to learn. Ods fish! 
the anguish I endured ! The gasping, chok- 
ing breaths! I curled me up behind the 
barn, and died a hundred deaths; and 
father found me writhing there, and stood 
me on my head, and lammed me with a 
barrel stave till I was nearly sped; and 
mother shamed me sore, and said: "The 
world for ruin's ripe, since I've become 
the parent of a fiend who smokes a pipe." 
Yet dauntless was their noble boy, un- 
tamed and undismayed; I quickly got an- 
other pipe — when can my glory fade? I 
cried aloud, sustained and soothed by an 
unswerving trust: "I am the captain of 
my soul, and I will smoke or bust." And 
so the day of triumph came, and I could 
smoke, and smoke, without becoming so 
distressed that I was fit to croak. Ah, 
many weary years since then have flown 
with ruthless speed, and I've burned up a 
million pipes and ninety tons of weed ; and 
I have tried so hard to quit— and I have 
tried in vain; and so the small boy's cour- 
age gives the veteran a pain. 

162 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Harvest 



LIFE is pretty cheap and yellow, and 
it often bores a fellow, if he thinks 
about his troubles through the long 
and weary day, if he talks about 
his sorrows, laying bets that all to-mor- 
rows will be just as stale and sombre, just 
as grewsome and as gray. Ah, the world 
is what we make it ; if we fuss around and 
rake it, hustling for a crop of trouble, we'll 
have windows high and wide; but it will 
not pay for reaping, and the thrashers 
will be weeping when they see the scurvy 
harvest that has been your boast and 
pride. If you fire all thoughts of sadness, 
and go raking round for gladness, if you 
just insist that worry take its grip and 
trunk, and roam, you are sure to find the 
mowing pays for all the work and sowing, 
and the thrashers will be whooping on the 
day of Harvest Home. All my metaphors 
are tangled, and this rhyme is badly jan- 
gled, but you'll doubtless catch its mean- 
ing if you use a hook and line ; do not mind 
the ills that bore you, nor the clouds that 
threaten o'er you; every day provides its 
solace, and to-morrow will be fine ! 



163 



Business Prose -Poems 



Saturday Night. 



NOW the week of toil and grinding 
closes with the fading day, and 
the lines of men are winding on 
their cheerful homeward way. 
And I watch them, heavy hearted, as the 
twilight shadows fall; in the week that is 
departed I have done no good at all. True, 
I've made a lot of money, but can any crea- 
ture say that I made his life more sunny as 
he toiled upon his way? I have sold some 
houses dearly, I have made some trades in 
land, but I can't remember clearly that I 
gave a helping hand. I have loaned 
to those who borrow, I have made some 
debtors bleed; but in sombre homes of 
sorrow I have done no kindly deed. I have 
worn the victor's laurels in the markets of 
the town, but had naught but empty morals 
for the man who's stricken down. At the 
banks I've done my duty; all my business 
debts are paid; but in twilight's hush and 
beauty all my sordid triumphs fade. Gain 
is but a worthless leaven of the larger hu- 
man plan, for a soul approaches heaven as 
he helps his fellow man. 



164 



Business Prose-Poems 



Croesus 



HE has a most unseemly pile; the 
land is his for mile on mile; he 
he has a mansion on the hill, and 
at its foot he has a mill; and 
miners tunnel underground, to swell his 
fortune, pound by pound. You'd think his 
life should be a joy, a dream of bliss with- 
out alloy. You'd think he ought to dance 
and yell from happiness, but, truth to tell, 
in spite of all that he is worth, he is the 
saddest man on earth. His wealth will 
buy him farms and lots, and private cars 
and princely yachts, and it will bring, from 
far and near, the homage of the insincere ; 
it will control the hands and brains of le- 
gions toiling for his gains, but in the whole 
world's busy mart, it will not buy a 
loving heart ; it will not buy, until the end, 
what most he needs on earth — a friend. 



165 



Business Prose-Poems 



Pipe Dreams. 



WHEN I was digging ditches, I 
used to long for riches, I 
thought that I'd be happy if I 
had coin to burn; I saw the 
wealthy speeding along the road unheed- 
ing; they blew in more for stogies than I 
knew how to earn. When I was loading 
gravel, I longed and longed to travel, to 
scoot in palace coaches, or sail across the 
sea; I said: "I have to labor like thunder 
while my neighbor, is blowing in his bun- 
dle, as busy as a bee." And now with 
wealth I'm loaded; alas! it seems corrod- 
ed; it doesn't seem to glitter the way it 
ought to do ; my life is soft and easy, but I 
am fat and wheezy, I spend my days in 
yawning, and I am tired and blue. It's 
tiresome to be wealthy; it's better to be 
healthy, with springing, active muscles, no 
spavins on your legs; I wish that I could 
travel back to the days of gravel, when I 
could eat a bushel of good old ham and 
eggs! 



166 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Hard Luck Man. 



MY luck is fierce," in anguish 
wailed the man who forty times 
had failed; "the gods that guide 
poor mortals' feet have soaked 
me often, and repeat. All things upon this 
whirling sphere go wrong end foremost 
when I'm near; if I had luck, like other 
guys, you'd see me like an airship rise; I'll 
bet a twenty-cent cigar I 'd hitch my wagon 
to a star." I've noticed that the men who 
fail spring that old story, worn and stale; 
they never hand you out the truth; they 
never say: "I failed, forsooth, because I 
am a dizzy shirk; I hate to buckle down to 
work; I'd always let my business slide to 
take a joyous motor ride, or watch an or- 
gan grinder's tricks, or fuss around in pol- 
itics. Good Honest Toil may be the rage ; 
I pass it up, at every stage; the bread of 
labor makes me ache; I'd rather shake the 
dice for cake." The hard luck yarn is al- 
ways known wherever has-beens meet and 
moan. The fellows who are sawing wood, 
and baling hay, and making good put up 
no quitter's sob or worse, when they en- 
counter a reverse ; they take fresh grips on 
life and climb, and, get there somehow, 
every time. 



167 



Business Prose -Poems 



Selfishness. 



DO not tell me doleful stories of the 
city's poor, I say, for I'm think- 
ing of the glories of the car I 
bought today. She's a beauty and 
a hummer; nothing finer passes by; and 
I'll have some fun this summer or I'll 
know the reason why. There's a widow 
needs assistance? There are children 
starving near? Friend, I wish you'd keep 
your distance, with your stories bleak and 
drear. It is anything but pleasant, and it 
gives my nerves a jar, when I'm busy, as 
at present, cranking up my motor car. 
There are workmen standing idle, and they 
have no place to dine? Friend, I'm going 
to the bridal of a lady friend of mine. I 
have bought her gems and lilies, and I can- 
not spare the cash that would fix your 
weary Willies with a bellyful of hash. Do 
not urge and do not press me — and I think 
it's mean and low, thus to worry and dis- 
tress me, with you dismal tales of woe. 
There's a poor old woman weeping, that 
her sons have strayed afar, and in want 
her watch she's keeping? Well, just hand 
her this cigar. Ah, this life would shine 
and glisten like a snow wreath on the moor, 
if we didn't have to listen to these spiels 
about the poor! 



168 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Grouch 



IT'S all very well to be nursing a 
grouch, when everything travels 
awry, and you haven't the pieces- of - 
eight in your poucli to pay for a cran- 
berry pie ; it's all very well to use language 
galore, and cover your whiskers with foam; 
you may prance around town with a head 
that is sore — but it's beastly to carry it 
home ! You may be discouraged and worn 
by the strife ; then make all your kicks on 
the street, for the man who will wear out 
his grouch on his wife, isn't fit for a can- 
nibal's meat; if troubles and worries are 
beating you down, and bringing gray 
hairs to your dome, 'twill do in the office to 
carry a frown, but it's ghoulish to carry it 
home ! The Lord, who made sparrows and 
Katy H. Dids, loves the man who is stal- 
wart and brave, who cheerily goes to his 
wife and his kids, though his hopes may 
be fit for the grave; but the Lord has no 
use for the twenty-cent skate, whose cour- 
age is weak as the foam; who piles up his 
sorrows, and shoulders the weight, and 
carefully carries it home! 



169 



Business Prose- Poems 



Dreary Old Age 



I'M growing old. That fact forlorn 
brings to my eyes the tears. The 
music of the dinner horn no longer 
charms my ears. I'm summoned to 
the groaning board, and go with dragging 
feet, and languidly I take my sword and 
carve the fragrant meat. I nibble at the 
stately roast, I care not for the hash; I 
am not hungry for the toast, the eggs or 
succotash. And when I've eaten something 
hot my stomach breaks its thills, and ties 
itself into a knot and makes demand for 
pills. Ah me! Ah you! Ah Richard Roe! 
I full of yearnings am for dear, dead days 
of long ago, when I could eat a ham ! When 
I was young my appetite was equal to the 
fray; I ate all day and dreamed all night 
of grub that got away. And when I heard 
the brass horn's screams that called to 
meat and pie, I vaulted over trees and 
streams, and fences eight feet high. No 
longer comfort do I find in dinner trum- 
pet's blare; nor do I with contended mind 
discuss the bill of fare. 



170 



Business Prose -Poems 



Brooding 



1SIT sometimes at night alone, and 
think about my stock of woes, until 
my bosom sheds a groan, and briny 
tears run down my nose. I think 
about the slights and slurs that I've en- 
dured throughout the day, and wail: "Man 
gets but cockle-burs, when thinking that 
he's buying hay." The more I think along 
this line, and dig up sorrows by the peck, 
the more my eyes produce the brine, until 
it slops adown my neck. And then the 
hausfrau comes along, and says : "Why are 
you mooning here? Great Caesar," says 
she, "sing a song, and can the sob and 
flowing tear! No Injun in this bailiwick," 
the hausfrau says, with chiding glance, 
"has blessings round him half so thick, so 
hump yourself and sing and dance! It 
gives me seven yellow pains," the haus- 
frau argues, as she stands, "to see a man 
possessed of brains brood o'er his woes 
and wring his hands. Forget you griefs," 
the hausfrau cries, "forget your griev- 
ances and fears ; I hate to see your pickled 
eyes, and mark your whiskers, soaked with 
tears." Then I forget my soul's turmoil, 
and buckle down and mow the lawn; and 
any man who tackles toil will find his fears 
and sorrows gone. 



171 



Business Prose-Poems 

The Misanthrope 



I USED to hate my fellow-men; I sat 
and grumbled in my den, and, railed 
at human life ; I said that hearts were 
full of guile — I know my own was 
full of bile, my thoughts were all of strife. 
I said that no one in the land would e'er 
extend a helping hand to any wayworn 
friend, or aid some pilgrim to the front 
unless he knew the kindly stunt would pay 
him in the end. Then I fell sick with boils 
and hives, and all the neighbors and their 
wives came prancing to my lair; they 
brought me jam and marmalade and mixed 
me horns of lemonade and dope beyond 
compare. They fed me wienerwurst and 
chow and gently fanned my fevered brow, 
when I was growing worse, and told me if 
I had to croak they'd see the undertaker 
bloke and cough up for a hearse. They 
watched beside my lowly bed,, and fixed 
the poultice on my head, and when they 
thought I'd die they looked as sad as 
though they knew that I was worth a cent or 
two; some even paused to cry. The folks 
we see from day to day may seem to go 
their selfish way, intent on private aim; 
but when real kindness is desired to help 
some mortal sick and tired, you'll see them 
in the game. 



172 



Business Prose -Poems 



The Store Talksmith 



1WENT into a hardware store to buy 
a quire of nails. The clerk I dealt 
with was a bore, who told me dreary 
tales. He wore a large elastic smile 
that split his face in two ; his jaw was going- 
all the while, and when his stunt was 
through, I cried: "Cut out these verbal 
gales! Let all this talk be tinned! Lo, 
when a patron comes for nails, you only 
hand him wind!" I went into the drug- 
gist's lair, to buy some pickled smoke j a 
languid salesman met me there, and said: 
"Say, here's a joke!" And then he 
slammed me on the back, and leaned against 
.my bust, and quoted from some almanac a 
joke all red with rust. And then I smote 
him with a chair and knocked him through 
the floor, determined as I left that lair, to 
go there never more. Oh, when will buoy- 
ant salesmen learn to give their jaws a 
rest, and know that customers don't yearn 
for quip and ancient jest? Ah, how I love 
the quiet clerk, who sells me sealing wax, 
and keeps his mind upon his work, and 
sidesteps almanacs! 



173 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Eminent Divine 



INTO our little burg there came a 
minister of world-wide fame who 
preached for half an hour; his ser- 
mon surely was a scream ; it touched 
upon a vital theme, and throbbed with 
force and power. The folks from all the 
countryside had come to hear the pulpit's 
pride hand out some words of cheer; he 
drew big money for his speech — for less 
than that our pastor 'd preach a quarter of 
a year. I saw our pastor standing by, with 
admiration in his eye, a humble, shrinking 
man, who labors with us day by day, and 
does his best to show the way, and teach 
salvation's plan. Our pastor knows what 
hunger's like; he makes long journeys on 
the pike to spring his gospel dope ; he lifts 
the mourner's drooping head, and prays 
beside the dying bed of sinners shorn of 
hope. He knows us and our little sins ; he 
tells us of the scheme that wins forgive- 
ness in the end; he's been our comrade 
through the years, he shares our triumphs 
and our tears, he is our bully friend. God 
bless him in his humble path! I'll bet he 
cuts a wider swath than all these surpliced 
lads, the church's famed and gifted stars 
who scoot around in private cars and lec- 
ture for the scads! 



174 



Business Prose- Poems 



In the Kitchen. 



1 OFTEN drop my helpful book to 
watch fair Arabella cook. No weary 
kitchen drudge is she ; she cooks with 
gladsome ecstacy. I've seen her take 
some flour and grease, and then produce a 
masterpiece. With soul inspired and glow- 
ing eye she makes the pudding and the 
pie ; when from the oven she will take some 
lovely and triumphant cake she feels the 
rapture that is known by geniuses, and 
they alone. And when we gather round 
the board and view with joy the tempting 
hoard of things that make our stomachs 
gay, we hand the cook a large bouquet. 
Jemima hasn't learned to cook; she paints 
large pictures of a brook; and pea green 
cattle stand therein, 'neath bughouse trees 
with leaves of tin; and crimson crows are 
soaring by, beneath a stretch of brindled 
sky; the sun, that shines on bird and beast, 
is sinking slowly in the east. We turn 
away, with sinking heart, from fair Jemi- 
ma's stunt in art, give her the jolt that she 
deserves, and watch sweet Arabella's 
curves. 



175 



Business Prose -Poems 



Weariness 



I'M tired of Jack London's tales of 
death in the Arctic snows, where the 
blizzard cavorts and wails, and 
freezes the pilgrim's nose. I'm tired 
of his Yukon flood, the husky and sled and 
barge; I'm tired of his tubs of blood, and 
butchers who roam at large. I'm tired of 
the Curwood folk, who slaughter and howl 
and screech; I'm tired of the bowie stroke, 
I'm weary of Bex E. Beach. I've soured 
on the cowboy camp, where the gun men 
make their plays ; I'm sick of the cows that 
tramp around on the plains and graze. I'm 
tired of the gifted sleuth, so skillful and 
smooth and wise, who digs up the hidden 
truth from its grave in a stack of lies. I'm 
tired of the stories coarse of life in the 
crowded flat; of narratives of divorce, and 
"studies" of this and that. I blow in my 
fifteen cents for a popular magazine, and 
sit by my garden fence and read till I'm 
sore and mean. The stories of smut and 
mud, the stories of vice 's chain, the stories 
of tubs of blood, all give me a convex pain. 
The yarns of the dive and slum, the stories 
of fashion's sins, the stories of thief and 
bum, of Wallingford guile that wins, all 
give me a dark green ache deep down in 
my troubled mind. Ah me, that a man 
would make one book of the good old kind ! 



176 



Business Prose - Poems 



Worth While. 



1SAT one day in my figtree's shade, 
and watched a man as he plied his 
spade. The man was old and his 
steps were weak, and deep were the 
furrows upon his cheek. I grieved for him 
as he bravely wrought, for his task was 
hard and the day was hot; and the paltry 
wage that the diggers get won't buy them 
napkins to dry their sweat. ' ' Old man, ' ' I 
said, with a friendly smile, "do you really 
think that your life's worth while!" With 
red bandana he mopped his head, and 
leaned his weight on his spade and said: 
"I am the happiest man in town! Last 
night T married the Widow Brown ! ' ' Then 
the bridegroom turned to his yawning 
ditch, and his heart was glad and his life 
was rich. It often happens, methinks, that 
those who draw our sympathy for their 
woes, get more from life than we pampered 
guys who feed on lobsters and shrimps and 
pies. 



177 



Business Prose -Poems 



Coronation 

THE king sits high on his nobby 
throne, and knights and ladies of 
high degree will smile or blanch 
at his lightest tone and bow and 
grovel and bend the knee. There's glowing 
splendor on every hand, it is a stirring and 
dazzling scene; and peers and princes of 
every land have come to jolly the king and 
queen. But the face of the monarch is sad 
and worn — the face of a man who has sel- 
dom laughed ; perhaps he thinks it a thing 
to mourn that he was called to the reigning 
graft. Perhaps he envies the man who 
digs, the man who dwells in a humble cot, 
with his muley cow and his bunch of pigs, 
and his apple tree and his garden plot. He 
may have dreams of a quiet life, afar from 
diamonds and thrones and silk, with his 
barefoot kids and his happy wife, who 
sings while skimming the morning milk. 
To ride to town on a load of hay and get 
two pun at the village scales may seem far 
better than holding sway o'er England, 
Scotland, and Cork and Wales. To live 
your life in the blinding glare that beats 
for aye on a throne and crown — ah, better 
to ride on an old roan mare, and carry 
three dozen of eggs to town! The faces 
of kings are always sad, their eyes are 
heavy, their whiskers gray ; their souls are 
sick of the reigning fad — they'd like to ride 
on a load of hay. 

178 



Business Prose-Poems 



National Anthems 



THEY'RE getting up a princely 
purse, and they will give it to the 
bard who writes some patriotic 
verse — who hits his lyre, and hits it 
hard. The anthems that we now possess 
are clanging things of brass or zinc; they 
cause the singers great distress, and drive 
the listeners to drink. And hence they're 
digging up a roll to stir up some Byronic 
sharp, to cause some nobly gifted soul to 
knock the stuffing from his harp. And now 
the poets in their dens will gird their loins 
in proper style, and charge their trusty 
fountain pens, and turn out anthems by the 
mile. And when the judges sit in state 
upon these hand-made songs to pass, 
they'll doubtless find that none is great, 
and all resemble sounding brass. A man 
may write such dope as mine for money, 
marbles, chalk or fun, but when he'd rise 
to strains divine he will not do it for the 
mon. Some day some tiller of the sod, un- 
lettered, toil-worn and obscure, alone with 
Silence, Night and God, may write a song 
that will endure. 



179 



Business Prose -Poems 



The True Reward 



THE swatting season soon will close, 
and we'll enjoy well earned repose. 
I look around with tearful eyes, 
upon my stock of swatted flies, and 
feel my toil was labor lost. The flies aren't 
worth half what they cost. A while I mur- 
mur and repine, and then my eyes begin 
to shine, and happiness pervades my 
breast. I say: "I surely did my best! I 
did my task with willing hand, and swatted 
flies to beat the band, and though my dead, 
when in a pile, makes more accomplished 
swattists smile, I smote the flies that I 
could reach, and Conscience tells me I'm a 
peach." To do your best — there honor 
lies! At sawing wood or swatting flies, at 
writing poems or raising greens, or mak- 
ing coffee out of beans — your soul will 
know the sweetest rest, if you will always 
do your best! We feel discouraged when 
we view the windrow when the day is 
through; we saw the other mowers pass; 
their arms were strong, they cut more 
grass ; they greeted us with clammy stares 
— but our reward's as great as theirs when 
come the evening hours of rest, if we have 
only done our best. 



180 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Rash Lover 



REGGIE, you're a fine young fellow, 
but you're bound to have your 
way, and you'll marry Arabella 
spite of all that I can say. Though 
advice from me is futile, since you're firm 
as any rock, though the things I say seem 
brutal, yet I've simply got to talk. Ara- 
bella is a daisy, smoothest girl I ever saw ; 
but the neighbors say she's lazy, and she 
will not help her ma. She is stylish, she is 
classy, and her eyes are simply grand; but 
the people say she's sassy to her mother, 
understand? I have lived and loved and 
suffered, and I've found it is the law that 
no sane, well-balanced duffer 'd wed a girl 
who '11 sass her ma. She may have a thou- 
sand graces to adorn her fair young life, 
but you'll find she'll bust the traces when 
you get her for a wife. You had better 
hunt some other damsel in this country 
wide, for a girl who '11 sass her mother will 
gold brick you as a bride. 



181 



Business Prose -Poems 



Nat Goodwin 



HE 'S writing books about the lives 
of all his plain and fancy wives. 
A few of them he may forget, but 
all the rest are in a sweat, for 
Nat, his heart devoid of ruth, declares he'll 
tell the ghastly truth. Since girls are 
bound to marry Nat, they'll have to stand 
for things like that. To wed that sassy 
Goodwin lad has got to be a sort of fad, 
which shows a low, degraded taste, for 
other games are far more chaste. The 
women of this modern day consider life a 
giddy play; to find amusement as they go 
is all the yearning that they know. When 
I was young the sober dames bent o'er 
their trusty quilting frames, and made 
straw bonnets, day by day, to send to 
heathen in Cathay; they brewed yarb tea 
and put up jam, and cured the large and 
luscious ham. Alas, unlike the old time 
dames, the modern girls have trifling aims ; 
to drink champagne at gilded bars, to ride 
around in motor cars, to send to Paris for 
a hat, to smoke cheroots and, marry Nat — 
this is the circle of their lives, such is the 
limelight brand of wives. 



182 



Business Prose-Poems 



Bunting Grief 



MY home should be a home of 
peace; there everything is slick 
as grease. The wolves don't 
have a chance to roar around my 
handsome cottage door — they soon would 
get it in the neck ; the horn of plenty is on 
deck: the larder's full of cake and jam, and 
codfish balls and shredded ham. The haus- 
frau and her bunch of kids would be as gay 
as katydids, if I could but my home enjoy, 
and not let outside ills annoy. But I must 
fret my derned fool soul o'er such things 
as Alaska's coal, the wiles of those blamed 
Guggenheims, and Eockefellermorgan's 
crimes. The wicked tariff makes me 
sweat; our naval needs I can't forget, and 
when I hear that Hobson man predicting 
warfare with Japan, all sunshine leaves 
my haunted life, and I get up and beat my 
wife. I can't indulge in harmless chaff; 
T can't enjoy my phonograph; I can't re- 
turn my wife's kind looks, or get much 
comfort from my books, because the refer- 
endum fake has filled me with a blue roan 
ache. What blooming fools we mortals be ! 
With Old Bill Shakespeare I agree. Our 
lives might be serene and calm, and Gilead 
would give its balm, if we from grief would 
step aside, and take the gifts the gods pro- 
vide. 



183 



Business Prose- Poems 

Foolish Anger 



YOU fly in a passion and roar in 
fool fashion when something or 
other goes wrong, and people who 
hear you regret they are near you, 
and wish you would mosey along. Man's 
never so foolish, disgusting and mulish as 
when he is prancing in wrath; and yet, in 
his snorting and silly cavorting, he thinks 
he is cutting a swath. I don't mind the 
clangor of justified anger — a man has a 
right to be mad when standing a session 
of wrong and oppression by men who are 
spiteful and bad. And when he is hotter 
than simmering water, he ought to go up in 
the air, and kick out a girder and yell 
bloody murder, and bust a suspender and 
swear. But he who goes raving and paw- 
ing and caving whenever by trifles upset, 
deserves a good whacking; he shows that 
he's lacking the sense to come out of the 
wet. 



184 



Business Prose-Poems 



Spare the Flies 



OH swatter, hold your hand, I beg, 
and do not slay that humble fly 
that tickles you with active leg — 
why should the lovely creature 
die? The Force that gave you life and 
breath designed that fly, so blithe and gay; 
who gave you powers of life and death? 
Who said that you might freely slay? Be- 
cause some scientists insist that flies bear 
germs from place to place, you take a blud- 
geon in your fist and would exterminate the 
race. The germs and flies have equal 
rights with men enjoyment to pursue, and 
so have skeeters, which, at nights, oft 
charm us with their loud bazoo. I hold 
that any living thing has title deeds as 
good, as ours, to loaf around this world and 
sing, and sip the honey from the flowers. 
And when I see some husky guy take lethal 
arms and fiercely pounce upon some unsus- 
pecting fly, that does not weigh a half an 
ounce, I feel that I'd set up cigars, or buy 
the lime juice by the tub, if some big mon- 
ster came from Mars, and soaked him with 
a twelve-foot club. When next you go to 
swat a fly, imagine that the monster came 
—some freak a thousand cubits high, and 
held a club above your frame ! 



185 



Business Prose-Poems 



The Healer 



ARE you full of grief, my neighbor, 
full of grief and woe? Shed your 
raiment, then, and labor, and your 
cares will go. Is your bosom torn 
asunder, that you thus repine ? Friends of 
mine who work like thunder haven't time 
to whine. Idlers stand about me weep- 
ing, men with empty hands ; and the happy 
men are reaping o'er the fertile lands. 
Life's a thing of cruel rigor for the shift- 
less knaves; kind for men who work with 
vigor, not as galley slaves. Foolish your 
complaint and wailing, foolish are your 
tears; work's the cure for all your ailing, 
and your griefs and fears. Work at anvil 
or at throttle, saw your pile of wood! 
Never bought you in a bottle remedy so 
good ! Work, on land or on the ocean, go 
and cut some grass ! Never was there pili 
or potion that was in work's class ! Work's 
the solace for the mortal by life's ills dis- 
traught ; it will make him sing and chortle, 
it will hit the spot! Be you statesman, 
soldier, bard or tiller of the soil, if you're 
tired of work, work harder ! Nothing heals 
like toil! 



186 



Business Prose -Poems 

The Suffragists 



DOUBTLESS dames deserve the 
ballot and the other things they 
wish. I won't stand around and 
argue — I had rather go and fish. 
I have met the suffrage women, listened to 
their tale of hope, but not one of all the 
legion could persuade me to elope. I can 
listen quite politely while such dames ex- 
plain their dream, but I'd never buy them 
peanuts or invite them to ice cream. I can 
seem quite sympathetic while the suffragist 
orates, but I'd never want to take her for a 
whirl on roller skates. It is strange that 
lovely damsels who don't care a whoop for 
votes always have as many lovers as a 
husbandman has shoats ; men admire them 
and adore them ; lovers fret away their 
lives till they have secured a promise from 
these girls to be their wives. Why are men 
so blind and foolish, marrying these trif- 
ling girls, who have naught to recommend 
them but their starry eyes and curls? Why 
not hang the orange blossoms on the noble 
suffrage dames, with their tragic eyes and 
voices and their missions and their aims? 
Why not wed some worthy relic with her 
sex's gpod in view, rather than some blush- 
ing maiden who has charming eyes of blue? 



187 



Business Prose-Poems 



What Is Beer 



DOC WILEY'S called on to decide 
the pregnant question: "What is 
beer?" Pie '11 split the subject 
open wide and hand a verdict 
down this year. lie might consult some 
dreary bum who has a dark and mournful 
tale of how from affluence he's come to oc- 
cupy a cell in jail. Beer is a good and 
harmless drink if you but let the stuff 
alone; while bottled up, like purple ink, it 
never caused a sigh or groan. But if you 
pour it down your throat, one bottle clam- 
ors for its r ate ; it starts right in to get 
your goat, aud it will get it, soon or late. 
This drink in which such virtue lies, will 
fill your head with aches and pains, and 
give you puffed and crimson eyes, and scat- 
ter cobwebs through your brains. On en- 
ergy it puts the crepe ; in useful work you 
hate to launch ; it puts new outlines on your 
shape until it leaves you mostly paunch. It 
spoils your appetite for food — beer, beer 
alone is all you beg — the good old brew, 
from glass or wood — until you are a hu- 
man keg. And when your love for beer 
you lose, because it fails to hit the spot, 
you fondly turn to stronger booze, and 
drink it till your insides rot. 



188 



OCT 13 »* n 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



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